VLVL2 and NPPF: Missed Communication

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Tim Strzechowski
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 12:06 AM
> To: Pynchon-L
> Subject: VLVL2 and NPPF: Missed Communication
> 
> 3.4 - 3.8  "In his dream ..."   Zoyd's dream of carrier pigeons is
> essentially a dream of missed communication, an opportunity to receive a
> message (rescue?), but an inability to get to them. Throughout the novel,
> watch for additional hidden signals and "missed communications," a
> recurring motif in this work (and other Pynchon novels).
> 
> 
> Now in rereading, I notice quite a few examples of missed communication in
> the chapter, ranging from the note left for Zoyd from Prairie, to the
> telephone call he receives regarding his "rescheduled" window jumping
> performance. Of course, the "You'll see" conversation with Slide, the Log
> Jam onlookers' perception that Zoyd's name is "CHERYL," the Log Jam/Cuke
> Lounge mishap, the "Blind-Side Gazette," the candy sheet window incident -
> - all contribute to the overall sense of missing the true meaning of the
> reality at hand.
> 
> Do Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune add to this motif?  How?
> 
> How does the motif of "missed communications" (or miscommunication)
> function in Chapter One of Vineland in a variety of ways?  Is there a
> pattern to the examples?
> 
> In what ways is this a common motif in the works of Pynchon?
> 
> Does Pynchon seem to suggest that this is a personal human factor, or is
> it a sign of something larger, more bureaucratic?
> 
> 
> from Pale Fire:
> 
> "A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
> introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. [...] 'Come,
> come,' said Professor Hurley, 'do you mean, John, you really don't have a
> mental or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotards
> who haunts Lit. 202?'  Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
> Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. [...] and they all laughed" (Vintage
> Edition, 21-2).
> 
> How is "missed communication" a factor in Charles Kinbote's "Foreward" to
> Pale Fire?  Aside from the obvious misinterpretations of Shade's poem
> (discussed in full in the Commentary sections), how does Kinbote's
> "Foreward" utilize this motif to establish the characterization of
> Kinbote?
> 
> Does "missed communication" help in the characterization of Shade?
> 
> 
> 

If missed communication can be taken as Zoyd's disconnectedness with the
world around him, then Kinbote becomes an easy parallel.  My sense of
chapter one of VL (and I haven't read it in over a decade, so this one
chapter I read yesterday feels fairly new to me), is of a sort of Rip van
Winkle waking up to a world that has changed while he slept, but not
realizing it right away (not getting the message).

Similarly, one approach to PF is to view Kinbote (as the alias of Russian
scholar V. Botkin) as one who feels dispossessed by his homeland, left in
the past as it were by the new Soviet system to which he doesn't find any
connection, and Zembla is the homeland he creates to replace it.  Neither
character is living in the world as it is in the present.

I took the Wheel of Fortune bit in VL to be Zoyd's wishing for some means to
help guide him through the choices he must but seems unable to make, and to
soften the blow as it were, to make more palatable the ultimate receipt of
that message he knows is coming but wishes to avoid.  Television then is
Zoyd's Zembla, a fantasy world that acts as intermediary between himself and
reality, as a filter for life.

akaJasper