VLVL 24fps and "the Movement"

[jbor]

Terrance: 
> Ortho Bob is obsessed with revenge. He is satirized.

I don't think that Ortho Bob's characterisation is a satire of Vietnam
grunts so much as it as a satire of Thanatoids. While I agree that Ortho Bob
and Vato & Blood are satirised, I'm not sure from the novel what Pynchon's
actual stance on soldiers who served in Vietnam is or was. I think he stops
short of satirising the vets just because they are vets, whereas characters
like Sasha and the Pisks are satirised precisely in respect of what they are
-- or what they have pretended to be -- within a political frame. That, in
satirising Vato & Blood, he makes them traitors and profiteers in Vietnam,
but cartoon-likable ethnic stereotypes as well, is an example of how "good"
and "bad" aren't ever straightforward categories in Pynchon's texts. I think
the same sort of thing is at work with Zoyd, Hector, Ralph, DL, Takeshi, the
Pisks -- most all of the characters in fact.

I'm not sure about the allegorical, "Underworld" reading. Could you
elaborate on what you see as Pynchon's point and provide page refs?

I agree that the simplistic "cops are bad and hippies are good" dichotomy
doesn't apply in the slightest. _Vineland_'s not some revisionist
glorification of the '60s youth movement or a tragic parable about Big
Brother and "antidemocratic power" blah blah at all -- Zoyd's no Winston
Smith, Brock's no O'Brien. And "Ronnie Raygun" is no Big Brother. The
dispute or tension between Rex and Weed, and between the different agendas
of the apolitical students and the "traveling Movement co-ordinators" and
PR3, and also 24fps, is a power struggle and a farce even before Frenesi and
the Brock dollars come into play. Frenesi, because of her sexual allure, has
power. Likewise, Weed's authority stems solely from his height. And Brock's
main agenda, like every other adult in the novel, is purely a personal one.

The parable is about which way Prairie will jump. And, if she does choose to
jump with Brock, and what Brock represents (the patriarchy), which it seems
at the (open) end of the novel she very well might, it will be because,
ultimately, she isn't convinced that Zoyd, Frenesi, DL et al., and what they
represent (the '60s counterculture), have anything useful or honest to
offer.

best