VLVL2 (14) Father of the Year + Question Mark

[Paul Nightingale]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of Terrance
> Sent: 13 April 2004 17:07
> Cc: Pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: VLVL2 (14) Father of the Year + Question Mark
> 
> 
> 
> Paul Nightingale wrote:
> >
> > At Prairie's birth Zoyd has good reason to stay away if that's what
he
> > wants; at best sidelined, he could easily claim he has been excluded
> > altogether.
> 
> He could and he tries to use this excuse several times, but the text
> doesn't permit it to stand: "Of course they would [invite him to take
> part in the birth of his daughter] and so it came to pass ... (285).
> 
Quite apart from your careful editing (aka distortion) of the text
(where does it say anything like "invite him to take part"?) there's the
little matter of the context: as usual this has to be ignored for your
point to stand. According to the words on the page, Zoyd wonders if
"[they'll] allow him in Sasha's house to see his own kid get born",
which sets up the 'me-&-them-ness' of the following paragraph. The words
"invite" and "take part" haven't been invited to take part.

> The narrative continues to offer him opportunities to walk
> > away, leaving the child with Sasha permanently and just
disappearing;
> > that he doesn't begs the question as to the narrative function of
this
> > particular character in the final hundred pages or so.
> 
> Actually, Zoyd does walk off a couple of times. In fact, he's not
there
> to help his wife out when she sinks into postpartum depression.

Given his status in Sasha's house it's hardly surprising. He isn't
mentioned from "his cheery haze of paternity" (bottom of 285) to the
time he calls Hub (mid-287). At the very least this implies that he is
monitoring the situation from afar, knowing how unwelcome his actual
presence would be. The exchange between Sasha and Hub (top of 288)
indicates that Hub might well share her low opinion of Zoyd. I discussed
this when we covered that chapter way back when.

 He does
> call Hub to let Hub know about the birth. But you've confused Hub's
> volition with Zoyd's good will when you say that
> Hub goes there to help out because Zoyd sends him.
> 
Given that Hub only knows what's going on because Zoyd tells him I think
it's a reasonable analysis. I'm not confusing anything with anything,
just following the narrative: because Zoyd calls Hub, Hub arrives home,
thereby facilitating a reconciliation that Sasha welcomes but
wouldn't/couldn't have made the first move on.
> 
> He takes
> > responsibility for bringing back Hub to be reconciled with Sasha
> > (287-288).
> 
> You'll have to be more specific, can't find this in the book.
> 
Its pretty specific already: the phone call mid-287 to Sasha's
"uncustomary embrace, sighing, clumsy", top of 288.
> 
> In the diaper scene (296) he realizes he "should have paid
> > more attention, cared more for these small and at times even
devotional
> > he'd been taking for granted": difficult to dismiss as just one
> > reference to good parenting when logic indicates he'd hardly take
for
> > granted something he'd hated doing, activities that hadn't become
part
> > of his routine.
> 
> Prairie is not taken care of by Zoyd, she is describes as suffering
from
> a chronic illness.

I'm not sure why the illness should be used as textual evidence that
Zoyd is careless. And you've jumped ahead some 20+ pages.

 And, when she asks Zoyd is she is ever going to get
> better, he has his first of many awakenings from irresponsible sleep.

Again you have to distort the text to make it fit. At the end of the
chapter that deals with the transition to Vineland, with Prairie "about
the age of three or four", "he had his belated welcome to the planet
Earth, in which he knew, dismayingly, that he would, would have to, do
anything to keep this dear small life from harm ..." (321; and several
readers have likened this passage to the end of the Orwell essay, of
course). That "belated welcome" echoes the earlier, also belated,
recognition that he has been taking his parenting for granted (ie, as
above, in the diaper scene). While "dismayingly" suggests that this
isn't necessarily the course of action a surfadelic would have chosen in
advance; it also suggests that, aware of the huge responsibility, he
knows he has never come close to rejecting it.

This is important because the following chapter begins in the here-&-now
of '1984', by which time (see not least the passage with Claire on 320)
Zoyd has been accepted by Traverse-Becker.

> The novel opens with Zoyd's irresponsible sleeping.

Your repeated use of "irresponsible" is loaded, of course: what, in this
connection, would 'responsible sleeping' amount to? And the opening
chapter has already been discussed in detail.

Prairie has done all
> the house chores and managed to get a ride to work, answer a call for
> Zoyd and pin a note to the fridge ... so on. Zoyd thinks he has been
> planning a gig for weeks, but he still doesn't have the dress, he
> doesn't have a car to get to the gig, he doesn't have any smokes, he
> doesn't have the money to pay for the dress, he does have some pot.
> Expensive habit.