VLVL(5) Vocabulary

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL(5) Vocabulary


> on 12/9/03 12:25 AM, Terrance wrote:
>
> > Yeah, dropping the can on the surfer is just way whiny.
>
> Like so much else with Zoyd, he didn't *intend* to ding the dude's plank,
he
> wasn't *aiming* for it or anything, and so he feels like it's not his
fault.
> It was just, according to Zoyd's conscience anyway ("what he imagined as
> cold scientific interest" 59.20), an "accident". Something that happened.
>
> Zoyd's totally self-centred and his "jealousy", as Sasha realises
(58.22-7),
> is in fact sexual jealousy. He's not concerned about Frenesi's political
> treachery, the fact that she set up Weed's assassination, that she
betrayed
> DL and the others,

Does Zoyd know about Frenesi's role in the assassination of Weed Atman and
the betrayal of DL? I'm not sure.

> that she dumped Prairie. He's hurting and angry solely
> because he's lost his fuck.
>
> best
>

That judgement is too easy, and too cheap.

Sasha:
"This poor sap could too easily settle for any least shadow of pain, seemed
to want to suffer every hurtful detail. Dummy. Why waste his time? He looked
old enough to've been through it before, but who knew, maybe this was his
maiden voyage into the green seas of jealousy." (58.23-7)

"his maiden voyage into jealousy" -- so Frenesi maybe was the first woman he
really loved. I've no reason to believe otherwise. Of course Zoyd is
jealous, with good reasons I'd say, a drug-federal fucking his wife. And
like in the Hector- and in the Brock Vond-relation he's a victim. He's the
one who's left alone with the child, the male version of a welfare mother.

and:
"Doubly frustrating because she was furious as hell with her daughter.
Frenesi's involvement with Brock, politically, was appalling enough, but
she'd also once again failed to take care of business, and Sasha was as
angry as she'd ever been at Frenesi's habit, developed early in life, of
repeatedly ankling every situation that it should have been her
responsibility to keep with and set straight. Far as Sasha could make out,
this eagerness to flee hadn't faded any over the years, with its latest
victim being Zoyd." (58.30-7)

In an earlier conversation with Prairie we've got the information that he'd
got other "fucks," but that, like for Prairie, Frenesi's the only one he
really loved:
"Dad, that's exactly the way I feel too, that . . . she's the only one for
me." (54.17-8)

Vineland is primarily about the family. Zoyd's a good father, like Sasha's a
good grandmother, without their care Prairie easily could have ended in a
state child care (57.2-8).

Otto