VLVL II: Why Japan?

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

jbor schrieb:

> The Hawaiian interlude seems to have been written separately and inserted
> into the text, almost as an afterthought, in order for Pynchon to be able
> to incorporate his previously-written Tokyo and Godzilla scenes, and as a 
> way to connect Takeshi into the main plot.



° Perhaps, but Takeshi does not come from another world. He comes from Japan 
and has appeared before, in Gravity's Rainbow. It's whole last part - 
"The Counterforce" - has already a Pacific orientation. Hiroshima (and then
Nagasaki) changed it all, Slothrop becomes the Fool, the USA turn [!] from the
paradigmatic anti-imperialic nation to the most powerful Imperium of Death 
the planet ever has seen. While Pynchon's other novels are up to shake off the
mental burdens of European tradition by 'deconstructing' them (and this goes 
also for CoL 49 which is in other aspects comparable to the book we're currently
discussing), Vineland leaves these out nearly completely and tries to face the 
actual American fate. When Zoyd and Takeshi meet (pp. 65ff) it's in an airplane
near Haweii which, taken Takeshi's kamikaze past (cf. GR, pp. 690f), can be read
as an allusion to Pearl Harbor. In this context, the Tokyo and Godzilla scenes
are not too different from other exotist landscapes in Pynchon's work. 
Deterritorialization, reterritorialization, space of places, space of flows ...
And at least on the level of organised crime the novel has another pair: The 
American Mafia and the Japanese Yakuza are mirrowing each other. But of course,
this is all probably very different from the way Japanese people see their own
country. "Not Japanese at all? In fact it sounded like something RIGHT OUTA 
HOLLYWOOD? Well ..." (GR, p. 691). Are there Japanese Vineland reviews?


KFL +