was Re: VLVL (6) Brock

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:

 The "failure of public will" during "the Vietnam era" which Pynchon
alludes to in the
> > 'Sloth' essay maps on to "the failure of college kids and blue-collar
> > workers to get together politically" in the late '60s which he addresses
> > in the _SL 'Intro' (p. 7). And it's the same turf he ploughs in the novel.


> 
> This is the point were you're in error. The "failure of public will" during
> the Vietnam-era of the Sloth-essay isn't "the failure of college kids and
> blue-collar workers to get together politically" of the SL-Intro. "Public"
> means more than the opinions of a small subculture. While the hippies and
> radical left were against the war the blue-collar workers largely supported
> it. The Sloth-essay calls the Reagan-Bush years a semi-fascist time ("not
> far behind"), something the blue-collar workers weren't aware of.



What P says is that the success of the "new left" in the 1960's was
limited by the failure of the college kids and the blue-collar workers
to get together politically. And, one reason was the presence of real,
invisible class force fields in the way of communication between the two
groups. 

And Robert is right on, the political Sloth during the Vietnam era  maps
on to this statement from SL. 


Here is the paragraph again: 

In this century we have come to think of Sloth as primarily political, a
failure
of public will allowing the introduction of evil policies and the rise
of evil
regimes, the worldwide fascist ascendancy of the 1920's and 30's being
perhaps Sloth's finest hour, though the Vietnam era and the Reagan-Bush
years
are not far behind. Fiction and nonfiction alike are full of characters
who fail to
do what they should because of the effort involved. How can we not
recognize
our world? Occasions for choosing good present themselves in public and
private for us every day, and we pass them by. Acedia is the vernacular
of
everyday moral life. Though it has never lost its deepest notes of
mortal anxiety,
it never gets as painful as outright despair, or as real, for it is
despair bought at a
discount price, a deliberate turning against faith in anything because
of the
inconvenience faith presents to the pursuit of quotidian lusts, angers
and the rest.
The compulsive pessimist's last defense -- stay still enough and the
blade of the
scythe, somehow, will pass by -- Sloth is our background radiation, our
easy-listening station -- it is everywhere, and no longer noticed.

Sure doesn't read like the words of an author of morally ambiguous
fictions. Does it? 
Again, that's not to say Pynchon or Melville or [*&^%$$$#] doesn't set
the  reader's moral confidence squirming under the microscope mirror,
employing all the techniques I listed in that over-long post with
excerpts from White and Eddins, but there is a moral yard stick in VL.
And Pynchon put it there. 

Frenesi and her political pals are the '60s college kids.
Where are the '60s blue collar workers in this novel? 

Is Sasha a "college kid"? 
Hub, a "blue collar"  gaffer? 

If so, we might want to take a closer look at the real and invisible
class force field
seperating these two. At their ability/inability to communicate and get
together. How this contributes to their Turning and their Sloth. What
unites them. What breakes down these barriers. If they are ever able to
communicate or if they must learn to love with their mouths shut (V.). 

When Praire is born, Zoyd is Missing, he takes LSD and floats out into
space, visiting, as Sasha puts it, another planet. Frenesi gets very
sick. Brock Vond doesn't help. Like Flash, in this episiode, he
rationalizes her depression and fear ... it's  how THEY want you ... but
Sasha is there, she works hard, to the point of exhaustion, to save her
daughter and grand-daughter. And, like Hector's call to Sasha in the
Zoyd gets busted episode, Zoyd calls Hub. Hub shows up. They work
together. Who was saved?