VLVL Zoyd: good dad or bad dad?

[jbor]

on 13/4/04 1:43 AM, Tim Strzechowski wrote:

> I know where you're going with this, and certainly the breakfast cereals
> aren't the least bit nutritious, but the health food shop "soda" is hardly
> NON-nutritious (grapefruit), and the guacamole (made from avacado) and
> tortilla chips (especially) wouldn't necessarily cause her to *lose* any
> weight.  Avacado is quite healthy, actually.

Yes, but high in cholestorol, so I'm told. I'd say that Prairie is the one
who has been to the "health food shop", and she's the one making the
guacamole (and serving Zoyd his beer, too). I don't think it's just a
coincidence that she's got body image issues (359).

I don't dispute that he cares about Prairie, or that he's likeable and
characterised sympathetically for the most part. I think Pynchon enjoys and
identifies with his ongoing cast of schemihl protagonists as I've said
before. But I think Zoyd's flaws are on display too, and I think the main
flaw is that, invariably, his priorities are all wrong. I'm surprised that
you don't find his reunion with Prairie at the picnic pretty low-key
considering what was going on when he sent her away. He doesn't appear to
have tried to contact her via Sasha as he promised he would, and when Hector
tells him that she'll be up at Shade Creek (361) he seems ... what? annoyed?
distracted? Whatever it is, Prairie seems to be the last thing on his mind
at this point, when she should have been top of the list. We know what she's
been through; where's the evidence of paternal concern for her well-being?

Maybe it's just an oversight on Pynchon's part -- this last section does
seem to have been thrown together without a great deal of effective editing
and many of the resolutions he's devised ring somewhat hollow -- but when
father and daughter first meet up again he's immediately off with Flash to
look for more beer (370). When they do eventually talk Zoyd's inability to
answer Prairie's question (which I'm not clear if she actually asks: 374-5)
takes us back to the conversation they had in the back of the camper van,
when he couldn't express his feelings or say what he wanted to then either
because he was worried that she'd think he was coming on to her (54). I
think the last comment she makes to him and his new buddy, Flash, is quite
telling: "You're adults, you're supposed to know." It seems to be part of
the point. These supposed "adults", including her mother and grandmother and
DL and Takeshi too, have let her down, have not provided the guidance or
answers she needed. Note also how she automatically takes on a parental role
with Justin (370-1, 374), showing up just how lax both Frenesi and Flash are
in that department as well.

best