VLVL (6) Brock

[Don Corathers]

Wait, wait, stop. "Hippiedom" = "a failure of public will" that was
responsible for the Vietnam War? I don't have the Sloth or Watts essays, do
have Slow Learner, where the one reference to the post-Beat "hippie
resurgence" is oblique and benign.

I'm just a little bit dubious that Pynchon put together the chain of
causation quite the way you have it. For one thing, the sequence is
backwards--the war, which had roots running back to the Eisenhower
administration, had been going pretty good for two full years before the
Summer of Love rolled around in 1967. I can imagine Pynchon blaming "a
failure of public will" for allowing the war to happen, although Cold War
containment policies, certain economic interests, and unbridled military
adventurism seem to me to be the proximate American influences. I don't
think he would have attributed that failure to "hippiedom," which was still
in utero when the first ten thousand or so body bags came home. Please
illuminate.

As for "vile-minded"--in context, I think this is more a humorous
characterization of Zoyd as a vividly imaginative wanker than it is a value
judgment: "As sex fantasies go, this one, especially for the vile-minded
Zoyd, was pretty bland." We're being told that Zoyd is capable of a raunchy
fantasy life, not that he's morally flawed. Unless, I guess, you consider
thinking about sex to be evidence of a moral flaw.

Don


----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 9:06 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL (6) Brock


> on 28/9/03 1:33 AM, Terrance wrote:
>
> > You've got to identify the implied author of the text. Not too hard to
> > do. Robert gave us two example.  Vietnam and the burning of American
> > Cities.  We know what P said about these.
>
> Yes. In the 'Sloth' essay he states how "a failure of public will"
permitted
> "the introduction of evil policies" in the American 60s, JFK's and LBJ's
war
> in Vietnam being the example given. And the 'Watts' article provides a
> pretty clear picture of where he stood on the issue of
officially-sanctioned
> racism against black communities under the same political regime. Both the
> _SL_ Intro and _Vineland_ confirm these negative assessments of that
> "failure of public will" which was hippiedom.
>
> And, in terms of identifying implied authorial judgements in the novel,
> don't forget that description of Zoyd as "vile-minded" (60.7).
>
> More often than not, however, Pynchon's narrative agency in the fiction
> stands aloof from the competing perspectives and interpretations which are
> provided, as with the description of Brock's anger and despair after
Frenesi
> left him:
>
>     But it was to be a while yet before reports stopped coming in
>     from lunch counters and saloons, often known to have strictly
>     enforced attitude codes, in unlikely West Coast locales, of
>     disruptions by a, some said "wild-eyed," others "terminally
>     depressed," Brock Vond. (69.25-30)
>
> His emotional reaction seems to have been little different from Zoyd's.
>
> best
>
>