VLVL2 work

[Don Corathers]

Jeez, I thought it was obvious, second time through the book, that if the
pigeons had had a chance to speak to Zoyd, they intended to tell him about
the federal task force shitstorm that was about to enter his life. It's a
little foreshadowing action in the form of a premonitory dream.

I don't think Zoyd's conscience is troubled at all. Sure he's being
dishonest with the government, in the same way it is dishonest to try to
spike your blood pressure before a draft physical or to assure the state
trooper that there's no reefer in your glove compartment. Less of a lie than
either of those, really. If Zoyd's disability payment was part of a deal
with the Justice Department (and I don't remember that it's ever explicitly
stated that it is--anybody?), it probably came as a surprise to him when he
got his first notice from the Social Security bureaucracy a year later that
he was required to demonstrate his continued craziness publicly in order to
maintain his eligibility. A get-along kind of guy, Zoyd was really just
doing what the government asked of him.

It is, just f.y.i., the (federal) Social Security Administration, not the
(state) Welfare Department, that administers disability assistance. One
difference is that in order to qualify for a disability check, Zoyd would
have had to pay into the fund, so it's not quite like being on the dole.

The Six Rivers Conference would probably be a high school sports league,
named after the same waterways as the Six Rivers National Forest, which is
in the neighborhood.

D.C.

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL2 work


> 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.
>
>