VLVL2 (1-5): Summative Thoughts (addendum)

[Don Corathers]

Well, since you brought it up.

At the risk of provoking the Australian welfare authorities again, I will say that the five chapters we've read provide more support for the suggestion that Zoyd's pigeon dream had to do with premonition than they do for the assertion that it was an expression of some free-floating anxiety about his disability guilt. In the first few sentences of the novel Zoyd wakes from a dream in which he has missed an important message. Maybe it was a warning. Something he needs to know about is coming up fast.

In the next five chapters there's nothing, really, that suggests Zoyd has a guilty conscience. About anything. But a lot of weird and unpleasant stuff starts happening to him, and we learn enough about his history to understand he has good reason to be having bad dreams about the government's continuing interest and intervention in his life.

Zoyd not only provides the point of view for the first five chapters, he is the point of entry into the novel. Now that his perspective is established, it filters all of the rest of the narrative for me, whether he's present or not. I think that's probably true of most readers of who have hands-on experience of 1968.

Don   
 


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tim Strzechowski 
  To: Pynchon-L 
  Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 2:25 PM
  Subject: Re: VLVL2 (1-5): Summative Thoughts (addendum)


  i.e. How does the opening paragraph relate to what happens in Chapters 2 thru 5?  (If my original post was unclear.)

    7.  Revisit that opening paragraph to Chapter 1 again.  Now that we've explored the first 5 chapters, is there anything significant about that paragraph in terms of what the novel will do in the next five chapters?
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