VLVL 98-103

[Michael Joseph]

Meditations upon her mother's ghost conclude as Prairie's mirror self
asserts her independence--"lifting one eyebrow a fraction more than
prairie could feel in her own face" (99). She suggests that Frenesi's
dread (profane) history is the one thing Prairie both fears and desires
most--has "ached all [her] life to know" (99). Indeed, the main strand of
the plot will be Prairie's search for her mother (and the truth about her
mother's past)--the myth of Demeter and Persephone, in reverse (note the
references, 101, etc., of Frenesi going "Underground"). As Prairie
divides, DL-- D.L. (Darryl Louise) Chastain--appears. The reader is given
to understand that the two women--liminal (mall rat) teen and her (white
trash) mother surrogate--will become close: DL's reflection is one that
Prairie "strangely . . . almost knew" (99) [The explanation, that she had
seen pics of DL comes later (100), and cannot efface the flash of
proleptic recognition.]. She stands watching Prairie in a "weirdly
familiar . . . way, as if ... about to continue a conversation" (99). Her
"warriorlike" stature naturally complements Prairie's vulnerability. She
carries a "battered cowhide shoulder bag" (99), while Prairie carries an
"earth-toned canvas" bag (99). (Again, Vineland connects person to nature,
and art to nature.) Perhaps their intimacy is anticipated as early as
chapter 5, when Takeshi convinces Zoyd to accept his iridescent
business-card by referencing "Lucy and Ethel -- if you're ever in a jam"
(67) (lyrics from Cole Porter's "Friendship" from ANYTHING GOES, used in
the I LOVE LUCY SHOW in the episodes Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same
Dress--shades of Zoyd!!)

The ongoing conversation that precedes Prairie and will carry her into
adulthood--or into intersubjective relationships of open-ended and
progressive responsibility--has involved Frenesi and DL. Prairie is
becoming Frenesi.

Once removed, the ongoing conversation is also the relationship between
Author and Reader, which any x author and x reader will be born into and
die out of. As has been pointed out, Prairie serves as reader; the
narrative of Vineland moves toward her. But here is the implication that
Prairie is the reader of a text *she may already know,* and therefore, one
may argue, on which she serves in some capacity to as author, as well as
reader. The mirror to which the text calls such lavish attention serves as
topos of the *reading*, or, in a non-post-structuralist sense, as
author/reader: you and I both read and speak from and within the mirror.
(A good question might be, if writing and reading arise from the mirror,
what does this mirror reflect? Where comes the light?)

The mirror (and the text's) doubleness is symbolized in DL's "familiar,
defensive" demeanor as well as in Prairie's brush, which can "bring her
hair forward in long bangs" (98) and shift to serve as "pointed" (i.e.,
pen-like) weapon (99).
---

DL makes herself known to Prairie through the business of Takeshi
Fumimota's business card (intro'd p. 66-7) with its curious renddering of
Hawaii Five-O. My claim is within the Hawaii Five-O "gag" (see p. 59, 60,
62) is a genuine, transcendent sign, albeit one that is meaningless or
indecipherable, and that Pynchon is using it very deliberately as such,
and its scandalous embrace of the sacred and the profane is what makes it
fun. (See "double-codes" in Umberto Eco _Postmodernism, Irony the
Enjoyable,_ John Barth's "Postmodernism Revisited" in _Further Fridays_
122-123; also check out archives for Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:58:14 -0700
(PDT).

Prairie and DL discover their common link; Prairie tells DL about Brock
Vond's reappearance on the scene, and DL begins to tell Prairie the story
of her mother. The story assumes the form of a fiction--DL realizes that
"whatever story [she] told this kid must not, maybe could never, be the
story she knew" (101); fittingly, the "kid" who dreads and hungers for the
truth (99) will be lied to--although her refusal of the status ("kid")
shifts DL's fiction into truth-telling. Prairie asserts herself bluntly:
"... you want to hear mine before you'll tell me yours" (101), the quid
pro quo of sexual exploration.

"Rising from the distant meadow came the music of the Vomitones, twanging
and crashing their way through a suite from Tosca" (101). Pynchon's
pasticcio of Puccini and the Vomitones underscores the helpless plunge of
comically maladroit Billy et al into a world beyond the security of the
Cucumber Lounge, paralleling Prairie's deepening involvement in the story
of her mother, but we are encouraged by "Vineland's strategy of "double
coding" to question a correspondence with the previous culinary reference
to Rossini. Possibly, we have a contrast between comic (Il Barbiere di
Siviglia) and tragic (Tosca) visions of romantic love, and reflections of
patriarchy ("twanging and crashing") and female agency, as background--and
just as a "suite" of songs woven into an overture anticipates the ensuing
action, the musical background signals alternative denouements.

The gradual "sedimentation" of similar images supports the hypothesis that
Pynchon envisions Frenesi as a tragic heroine. So, when contemplating how
to articulate Frenesi's past with BV, DL considers, "this was going to be
like trying to explain rape to a child and not talk about sex" (102).

As Prairie is working hard to piece together her mother's past from DL's
half-truths and half-remembered incidents, Ralph Wayvone blunders onto the
scene, making a clumsy, oafish grab at DL, who nonchalantly fends him off.
(Wayvone's "twanging and crashing" persona is a buffoonish parody of more
lethal exemplars like Scarpia--and Count Almaviva--a schlemiel and yet,
and yet...)

Unbothered by his grabass style, DL notes to Wayvone "Prairie here has
jsut had a run-in with your old pinochle partner Brock Vond" (102) The
card playing metaphor encourages us to reconsider what the name DL may
imply--deal. Is she a wheeler-dealer, in some double-coded sense in
control of Zoyd Wheeler's future? (If that future is embodied in Prairie,
perhaps she is. For a Pynchonesque chill, see also p. 12 "... and Zoyd
knew that one day, just to have some peace, he'd say forget it, and go
over. Question was, would it be this time, or one of the next few times?
Should he wait for another spin? It was like being on 'Wheel of Fortune,'
only here there were no genial vibes from any Pat Sajak to find comfort
in, no tanned and beautiful Vanna White at the corner of his vision to
cheer on the Wheel, to wish him well, to flip over one by one letters of a
message *he knew he didn't want to read anyway.*" (13). (Like father, like
daughter.)
--
"'The past--' darting his eyeballs around. 'Shrink says I'm supposed to be
leaving it behind." (102)  _Vineland_ prefigures The Sopranos. (I have
this note in my copy, but I think Paul mentioned this already.




Michael