VLVL2 (14) Father of the Year + Question Mark

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 6:06 PM
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).
>
> 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. 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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.

That's not what is said in the text on p. 321.25-33. It's winter and she's
probably got a cold, hardly the evidence that Z. is not taking care of her
properly.

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

By this you mean that he feels the responsibility he's got. For Prairie
he's her world. I think it's a very moving scene.

> The novel opens with Zoyd's irresponsible sleeping. 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.

Does this mean he's a real model hippie or isn't he indeed the pure
caricature of a hippie? Isn't it notorious hippie-ish (or the usual
prejudice) being unable to get things done properly, like you show in your
nice little summary of Zoyd's ineffectiveness?

Rob has said (I believe) that Zoyd's preferences are all wrong. From a
certain point of view I cannot deny that. But from another point of view
this is exactly one complaint (another one was hypocrisy) the nonconformist
youth had about Western society in general back then: the preferences are
all wrong; there is an illegal war going on, people, nature and environment
are dying, it is only money that counts and it is not unlikely that the
whole thing will be blown up in a nuclear war.

This background may have been temporarily forgotten during one
hippie-wedding afternoon but in general it's been one important reason for
the whole "hippie resurgence."

Otto