VLVL2 work

[jbor]

Additionally, at the end of the first section of the chapter there's Zoyd's
acknowledgement over the phone to Van Meter: "Shit. I knew someday this act
would get bigger than me." (8.32) At the 'Cucumber Lounge' Van Meter refers
to Hector as Zoyd's "old buddy" (10.10) which, as much as Hector's actual
reappearance perhaps, causes Zoyd intestinal discomfort; Ralph Wayvone, like
"everybody else", seems to Zoyd to be "unusually anxious" (10.30); and we
also learn that Zoyd's been psychologically or emotionally unsettled for
about a year or so, having gone through a "yoga phase" and letting himself
get tricked into buying a "mantra" from Van Meter, which he uses to calm
himself before taking his dive (11.28).

best

on 19/7/03 2:48 PM, jbor wrote:

> And external circumstances and remarks seem to contribute to his misgivings.
> There's the scene with Lemay in the logger's bar, where Buster has to
> intervene to protect Zoyd and makes the comment about him being on
> "governmental business" and Lemay immediately thinks he's an "[u]ndercover
> agent". Zoyd's quick to rebut that suggestion. And then there's the fact
> that the window pane had been replaced, unbeknownst to him, with sugar
> glass, his realisation that "something was funny" (11). All through the
> sequence Zoyd's out of sorts, not in control of things as he thinks he is;
> on the one hand he's just going through the motions and doing what's
> expected but on the other hand he's beginning to recognise that he hasn't
> got a handle on this situation the way he once had, or that he'd like to
> have. The times they are a-changing. Early in the chapter, after he lies
> about the dress being a "Calvin Klein original", the "girl younger than his
> daughter" tells him he should be "locked up" (5), and it's not made clear
> whether she means as a criminal or as a nutcase. With this girl (and with
> Justin later on) there's a sense of a new generation with a whole new set of
> attitudes coming through. In fact, this is one of the things which strikes
> me most about _Vineland_, a distinct sense of generational change.