Vineland

[jbor]

on 4/9/04 8:11 AM, Terrance wrote:

> again, VL doesn't set out to confirm the left's views of reagan-bush or
> preach to the prairie, but to chastise the left for their betrayals and
> their turns.

Yes, despite the pynchorrhoid's selective editing the novel in fact starts
off with Zoyd Wheeler, Pynchon's stereotype of a zany middle-aged hippie
(who we quickly discover is a long-time welfare cheat), waking up like Rip
Van Winkle after having slept through the past twenty years of his life, and
of political time as well, during which era of complacency and "everyone for
him/herself" the American republic had again embraced an oppressive
conservatism which is in some way comparable, so Pynchon seems to be
indicating, to that depicted in _1984_. Pynchon's historicist impulses lead
him to focus on how the situation has come to be, rather than, as Orwell
does, projecting a dystopian image of what could happen if ever state
socialism gained a firm foothold.

best