unreliable? in Vineland, nights in white satin ...

[Michael Joseph]

The honorable Tim Strzechowski wrote:

> I can see you're [Jbor] trying to qualify what I've said, and I
> appreciate your
> clarification, but you've basically supported all that I said, with one
> exception:
>
> > I think you'll find that the diction doesn't change all that much. The
> > phrase "rude updates" isn't really an example of "hipster vernacular"
> [...]
>
> I know what you're saying, but I disagree.  Perhaps the phrase "rude
> updates" isn't the purest example of "hipster vernacular," but the passage
>
> "Was it ESP, was he only reacting to something in his friend's voice?
> Somehow he knew who it would be [...] This time, though, it had been a
> while, long enough that Zoyd had begun to hope the man might've found other
> meat and be gone for good.  Dream on, Zoyd" (10)

To which I insert >>

"rude update" is a lovely surprise, and conveys the creativity of the
hipster vernacular Pynchon is modeling. "update" substitutes for
"awakening," in the commonplace "rude awakening," and is appropriated from
the tubal culture _VL_ so excessively references. So, by paying attention
to the structure of the sentence, we see how hipster vernacular improvises
itself, like music and, more broadly, like the kind of postmodern novel,
and the postmodern life, to which Pynchon is alluding. Note also the
really cool game P. is playing with the idiom he has
half-concealed: the implicit past participle "awakening" is partly
unveiled in the final "Dream on, Zoyd." The tension between the implicit
traditional "awakening" and improvised, innovative "udpate" exemplifies
the kind of formalistic opposition I mentioned the other day between
hipster talk and what I want to call a more austerely poetic diction,
which we see in phrases like, "broken silhouettes had stood against the
sky for all the years since," and, "with the past as well, and the crimes
behind the world, the thousand bloody arroyos in the hinterlands of time
that stretched somberly inland from the honky-tonk coast of Now."

This poetic diction lends context to hipsterese. It gives it a sonority it
would not otherwise have. And, I believe, it allows us to apprehend Zoyd's
persona and the plot trajectories in ways we otherwise would not.
Similarly, hipsterese grounds PYnchon's poetry in the mundane. Together
they push us to engage with issues of identity in terms of cultural
constructedness and an existential frame.

The honorable Tim Strzechowski wrote:

>
> The diction does change.  In GR, of course, it's more pronounced.  In
> _Vineland_ it's not.  I think given the themes, social commentary, and
> overall mood of _Vineland_ there's a reason for that seamlessness between
> the formal and informal.  But it's definitely there.

To which I add:

Obviously, and I haven't seen a serious argument to the contrary, have
you? (Although, what is meant by "seamlessness"? If it is the putative
elegant dovetailing of points of view, think we need to consider the
"seam" again, rather than pretend we are giving Pynchon the benefit of the
doubt.)

> I'm convinced we might do justice to this thread at this point to move away
> from this minor sticking point (for, in essence, we are in agreement here)
> and consider what Terrance has to offer regarding "privilege."
>
My preference for analysis is the microstructure of Pynchon's sentences,
and I hopse this approach will be privileged in the group read.



Michael