VLVL2 (1) Missed Communications: Beginnings

[Tim Strzechowski]

Quoth Paul:

>
> One might say, then, that Zoyd's annual performance of 'insanity' has
> two functions.
>
> 1. It confirms his eligibility for benefit, in the here-and-now of 1984.
> Consequently, his performance confirms the authority of the bureaucratic
> state, which has the resources/power to intervene in the lives of
> individuals-as-citizens (throughout VL we shall see that 'dropping-out'
> isn't really an option). Hence, his performance confirms also the gap
> between normal and deviant behaviour (insofar as Zoyd functions as a
> kind of scapegoat). All of which makes Zoyd a knowing subject. It also,
> by the by, renders irrelevant any question of whether or not Zoyd is a
> 'deserving' recipient: benefit fraud can only justify the state's
> surveillance of all citizens (along the lines of, if you've done nothing
> wrong, you've nothing to hide, etc).

That's a pretty cynical worldview that Pynchon is offering then, isn't it?
But I suppose it would tie into the paranoid vision of Them that is pretty
consistent in his works.  You hide, They seek, right?

[...]

>
> Performance, the knowing subject's quotation of a suitable
> look/appearance: he produces a text that must be read by its intended
> audience. Note: "he tried" and "he hoped" - here, one might infer
> repetition, revision, the use of a mirror to rehearse in order to
> (endlessly?) delay the moment of rebirth-through-performance (or passage
> from the Imaginary to the Symbolic).
>
>

Does this (i.e. the past tense in your examples) also suggest (foreshadow?
signify?) unfulfillment of what he is attempting to accomplish?

By the way, I find this thread fascinating.  I wish I had something
substantive to contribute to it, but I'm just having too much fun watching
it play out!

Tim