VLVL The Wayvones

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 8:58 AM
Subject: VLVL The Wayvones

> on 9/10/03 3:01 PM, Michael Joseph at mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu wrote:
>
> > VL focalizes the action from Ralph Wayvone's perspective.
> >
> > Gelsomina's marriage to Dominic "the movie executive" recollects
> > marriage
> > of Frederico Fellini to the co-star of La Strada, Giuletta Masina. (She
> > plays gelsomina in La Strada.)
>
> Gelsomina is marrying an unnamed "college professor from L.A., of a good
> family with whom Ralph had done complaint-free and even honorable
> business."
>
> Gelsomina is "the baby" of the family. Dominic is Ralph's middle son, and
> Ralph Jnr is the eldest. (p. 93)
>
> best
>
>

What at first comes to mind is that the high esteem "the family"
has as a value in the USA collides with the "Family" in the
mafia-nomenclatura -- a form of organized crime, patriarchal
organized and controlled by one man at the top who hasn't been
elected but gained his rank by brute force or heritage.
It's doubletalk again, the good *family* vs the mafia "Family*.

"The Honored society, or Mafia, as it was less often called,
was a vast criminal brotherhood that developed in Palermo
and western Sicily. It rose as a reaction to centuries of misrule.
What distinguished the Mafia from similar groups was the pace
at which it prospered and took over Sicilian society.
By 1900, it controlled virtually the entire western third of the island.
Members took control of all local governments in the city and
assumed management of all factories and landed estates.
Eventually, the migration of thousands of immigrants from Sicily
to the U.S. would bring many members of The Honored Society
to New York, and it's five boroughs. The Mafia would slowly
take control of New York, Chicago, Nevada, Havana, and
much more of the U.S."
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5854/main.htm

OMERTA?
THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MAFIA
http://users.aol.com/whizkid01/hist.html

We all know the history of the mafia, which had become powerful through
prohibition, from all those great movies, but what
has become of the heirs? And why has been especially the American society so
receptive to mafiotic structures? Strictly neo-liberal economies and
prohibition that enabled huge profits?

"Tony is haunted by the feeling that the glory days of mob life are long
gone, and that he might not measure up to the titans of the past."
http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/episode/season1/episode_01.shtml

This "lonely at the top"-job bears the problem that the feedback mostly
isn't honest. People are lying because of fear. Correct feedback always
is the trouble with control, with the rocket, the mafia or in a
snitch-system like the former DDR.

The lonely man at the top gets incorrect information so his
decisions inevitably are based upon slighty incorrect facts.
So Ralph sen may be lucky to have some people "to talk to him straight":

"Your  problem, Ralph, is you're not enough of a control freak for the job
you're in." (...) His shrink told him the same things." (93.2-5)

But this kind of general advice isn't helpful at all. And he won't discuss
the details of his "business" with his shrink.

Ralph junior's comparison with The Royals isn't that bad, like the case
of Prince Charles seems to indicate the heir by birth isn't necessarily
the best man for the job, the basic structural error of feudal systems:

"His kids -- well, there was still time, time would tell." (93.10-11)

The fact that this kind of life needs a legal camouflage, so black money
is invested in legal enterprises:

"One thing you have to know," Ralph confided to his namesake the day the kid
turned eighteen (...) "before you get too involved, is that we are a
wholly-owned subsidiary." (93.23-27)

I've missed "The Sopranos" on TV, but what I get from the trailer of the
first episode Tony Soprano attends a shrink too because he is in trouble
with that double-life he has to lead:

"It's enough to make anyone want to see a shrink."
(review of episode one)
http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/
http://www.the-sopranos.com/
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/8/0,1872,2005800,00.html

So one could say Pynchon has anticipated this telenovella.

Otto