VLVL (6) Brock

[Don Corathers]

Rob:
>
> Hippiedom and "the Vietnam era" are synonymous in the context, and the
> "hippie resurgence" is overtly critiqued in both the _SL_ Intro and in
> _Vineland_. (Paul M. makes a valid point about Brock's understanding of
the
> student "revolutionaries" reflecting Pynchon's own.) Point is, after all
the
> fanfare and flower-weaving were over, the U.S. war in Vietnam went on, the
> Repression continued. The bottom line in a democracy, according to Pynchon
> at least it would seem, is that this equates to "a failure of public
will".
>
> It's pretty straightforward.

Not for me, really. I don't see Pynchon assigning the responsibility for a
"failure of the public will" to any particular group in the Sloth essay.
(And thanks for the link.) The reference to the hippie resurgence in the
Slow Learner intro is tangential. That leaves us the work at hand, in which
hippie culture *is* satirized, but then so are surfers, film producers,
prosecutors, loggers, music impresarios, landscapers, restaurateurs, and
just about everybody else in California.

Student radicals, by the way, are not, strictly speaking, hippies. Hippies
are by definition apolitical.

>
> But are you really claiming that "vile-minded" means "raunchy"

Yes. What else would it mean?

and that it
> is a positive way of characterising someone's sexual fantasies?!

No, not positive, but since it's a description of a private thought that
Zoyd would be keeping to himself had the narrator not intervened, it's not
something I'm going to use to form a judgment about the character, either.
If it was common practice to judge people by the quality and content of
their sexual fantasies, in the event some omniscient narrator started
spreading them around, we'd all be in a lot of trouble.

My point was that the adjective was specific to the fantasy, and shouldn't
be generalized to a description of Zoyd's character.

Or is it
> just another bait?

No bait intended.

Don

>
> best
>
>
> > 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
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>