VLVL2(1) Missed Communications: Beginnings

[mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu]

Paul, Good comment on Zoyd's "marginality" and being "out of sync." 
Helps me to see him more clearly as a figure not quite of this world or 
out of time, a figure that 
bridges the Vineland of the imagination (dreams/sacred) and the Vineland 
of the actual (of dates, citation, some quite arbitary -Johnny 
Copeland, etc.). I find it intensely satisfying that Pynchon begins his 
novel by placing a "marginal" character at the upper margin of his work, 
a self-referential act I see in the illumination of the pigeon, as well. 
 It's a refinement of the dazzling anacrusis of GR. Ironically, Zoyd as 
Zed is doubly marginal, a kind of Janus-figure looking backward at the 
upper margin and forward toward the lower margin of the novel. (Am I 
going too far to see a Christian symbolism here as well, echoed perhaps 
in the Zoyd as child implication?)

Thanks.

Michael


> For the moment I just want to deal with the opening pages to Zoyd's
> conversation with Slide (3-5).
> 
> The opening chapter of the novel serves as an introduction to its
> characters. A pretty obvious statement, perhaps. However, at this 
stage,
> the reader has no idea which characters will be central/peripheral to
> the narrative as it unfolds over three hundred pages or so. Zoyd 
appears
> in the first line, his name juxtaposed to the date; the chapter goes 
on
> to describe his adventures. Yet he will soon disappear from the
> narrative and not return for a while. Zoyd's function as a character 
is
> to lead us from the 'now' of the novel to 'the past'; at which point 
he
> is marginalised. The narrative in Ch1 alerts us to Zoyd's status as a
> character through what Tim has called "the motif of missed
> communications".
> 
> To put it another way, Zoyd is always 'out of sync' with the 
narrative.
> He wakens late, loses his dream and receives a message about a 
message.
> His (preferred) breakfast has disappeared, and then he finds he's not 
in
> control of his gig: "Check with who, I'm the one doing it, ain't I?" 
He
> has been silenced when the TV station refuses to accept his press
> release. By the end of the first page, therefore, we have discovered
> that Zoyd, far from being the protagonist he thinks he is, has in fact
> been "rescheduled" (which refers to both time and place).
> 
> At the same time, however, Zoyd might be thought guilty of
> prevarication, a refusal to 'get into sync'. The first paragraph 
imparts
> a lot of information, about the dream, about the letter, before ending
> with: "Zoyd was out of smokes". His search for "smokable butts" delays
> the phone call to the TV station. Introspection. Then, "smoking up 
half
> a joint he'd found in his pocket" delays the purchase of the dress.
> Speaking to Slide, he admits: "This year it snuck up on me" (although
> we're told he "had been planning this for weeks"). Speaking to Slide,
> Zoyd attempts to construct an alternative narrative, one that locates
> him as protagonist, armed with "the element of surprise". However,
> "Don't I?" is apparently added as an afterthought, and Slide refuses 
to
> corroborate Zoyd's version of events.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>