VLVL 24fps and "the Movement"

[jbor]

Terrance:
> Well, you get the point. Vietnam Veterans are sacred cows in the USA.
> Look at all them assholes writing books and running for president making
> movies of themselves.  Pyncho is not afraid to put a bell round the
> sacred cow and kick it in the ass. Writing on the Edge. I'm telling you,
> read the SDS book next to VL, the parody is palpable.
> 
> I would love to hear from some hippies and vets with a sense of humor.
> This list is too politically blindfolded to dig it. It's funny as hell.
> When you read Sale side by side it's obvious fun.
> 
> College of the Surf?
> 
> A conservative student body, building named after surfers.
> 
> Real Estate developers, Ad Hoc, Research ... it's too funny.


Yeah, I get it, but like MalignD I find that a lot of the supposedly funny
stuff falls flat -- the kooky names, middle-aged transvestite hippie with a
chainsaw, redhead lesbian ninja in a Batmobile -- and the narrator's
prolixity and sarcastic tone are off-putting. There's some good stuff, but a
lot of it comes across as strained, unpolished, sophomoric. It's his weakest
work by far.

My point about Sale's book is that in it he delineates various phases in the
'60s "Movement". And what I think Pynchon is depicting and satirising in
_Vineland_ is the start of its final phase, as Sale also envisages it, the
early death throes, where "the Movement" begins to fracture and disintegrate
and ultimately collapses. I don't think Pynchon satirises or even touches on
the earlier phases in his text, except by implication, in that *we already
know* that there *had been* legitimate and progressive causes at stake
earlier on and that "the Movement" itself *had been* something much more
worthwhile and dynamic and relevant than the travesty which it has become by
1969-70. I think that that's the recognition which propels the satire.

And, so, I guess I disagree that "Catholicism and Conservatism" are what
inform Pynchon's work. I think they cop the same sorts of sacred cow satire
as most everything else does.

best