VLVL "happy ending"?

[pynchonoid]

 pynchonoid:
> > Pynchon makes Zoyd
> > and co. one big happy at the novel's end (they
> even
> > accept Frenesi back from beyond the pale), while
> > depicting Brock with no redeeming social values
> and
> > condemning him to a kind of living hell.
> 


umberto
> [...] A kind? At the end of the fair Brock Vond is
sent to
> hell, period. [...] 

That's right.  It's not the kind of hell I learned
about in Sunday School, however. It's a different kind
of hell. 

I do think that in letting Zoyd & family reunite,
Pynchon is making something nice happen for them, and
that the end Pynchon devises for Brock smacks of
punishment not rehabilitation.  On the other hand,
perhaps that scene on the other side of the river is
just one unending party, and Pynchon has done Brock a
favor;  as Vato observes, "they say you'll adjust." At
any rate, Brock doesn't get what he wants, but Prairie
gets her family back. 


"One big happy family" -- the phrase I used -- doesn't
necessarily mean "happy ending" to the novel, of
course. Desmond still killed those birds and Zoyd
never did get the message.  

At the end of the novel, knowing how Reagan-Bush will
go on to torment more families, and bring the US
ever-closer to a full-blown police state, it's
difficult to stay too happy for very long. 


	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/