VLVL TV Parody or a Satire

[jbor]

on 7/1/04 3:30 PM, Terrance wrote:

> What the hell is zapping?  McHale call his essay Zapping on Vineland.

It's a long time since I read it, but I think McHale uses "zapping" to mean
channel-switching or channel-surfing. I think I agree with you that it
wasn't one of his most convincing pieces on Pynchon's work. Pynchon uses and
refers to a variety of sub-genres of tv programs, movies, cartoons, songs
&c, and in a variety of ways, in the text.

I also had the impression that Vato & Blood were somehow implicated in Ortho
Bob being "damaged in Vietnam" (174.20, 179.5-6).

The David Foster Wallace interview is quite an interesting one, and
worthwhile reading in its entirety for his comments about irony and satire
(what people like Fredric Jameson also discern as the characteristic "blank
irony" and "blank parody" of postmodern fiction).

http://www.smallbytes.net/~bobkat/jestwiley2.html

His comments about Pynchon and Gaddis are quite astute.

best

> What has Zapping to do with parody? A little bit, but VL isn't a parody.
> Pynchon novels are all loaded with parodies, but to argue that the
> entire novel is a parody of how TV has represented a chunk of US history
> is ridiculous. 
> 
> I'm interested in Vato & Blood. These Brothers are in it for the money,
> but as we all know by now, they will take Brock Vond for a ride into
> Hell, so we shouldn't waste too much time discussing Hair and Nails and
> ignore these brothers.  Should we?
> 
> Cartoons. Vato & Blood are in the car business in Vietnam, motor pool.
> They sell information to the North Vietnamese and to their friends and
> business partners. Their fellow Americans die and they are directly
> responsible. We can't be sure if they are directly responsible for Ortho
> Bob's death, but it is clear that know something about it because when
> they find out about Takeshi's KA scam they go to him and spill their
> guts, providing testimony, not only about Vietnam, but about Ortho Bob
> in particular.