Against The Day Review By Publishers Weekly

[kelber at mindspring.com]

A review before I've read the book?  I'M NOT LISTENING!!! (Said with hands over ears, humming loudly).

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
>Sent: Oct 25, 2006 11:21 AM
>To: Jasper Fidget <jasper at hatguild.org>, Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: Against The Day Review By Publishers Weekly
>
>
> -------------- Original message ----------------------
>From: Jasper Fidget <jasper at hatguild.org>
>> On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:43 +0000, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>> > I don't know if this constitutes some sort of spoiler, but
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>> > Which ties Against The Day to Vineland, as the Traverses figure in that fine 
>> little bagatelle of a book. Looked into Vineland this morning briefly, but will 
>> probably scrye the latter half of the book in further search of the Traverse 
>> family history.
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>> "Zoyd's relations with the Traverses he did get in touch with were
>> complicated by his scab activities, though Zoyd would've preferred
>> "independent contractor." These were old, proud, and strong union
>> people, surviving in one of the world's worst antiunion environments —
>> spool tenders, zooglers, water bucks, and bull punchers, some had fought
>> in the Everett mill wars, others from the Becker side had personally
>> known Joe Hill, and not mourned, and organized, and if they were
>> allowing in over their doorsills from time to time nonunion odd-jobbing
>> Zoyd, it was only out of sympathy for his hair and life-style, which
>> they blamed on his mental disability, and love for their distant
>> relative Prairie, who as a true Traverse would piss on through despite
>> her father's shortcomings just fine." 
>> VL 319-320
>> 
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>"She'd come down by old 101 from from the redwoods to the City, a teenage beauty with the same blue eyes and wolf-whistle her daughter would have, out on her own early because of too many mouths to feed at home. Her father, Jess Traverse, trying to organize loggers in Vineland, Humbolt, and Del Norte, had suffered an accident arranged by one Crocker "Bud" Scaantling for the  Employeers' Association, in plain sight of enough people who'd get the message, at a local ball game, where he was playing center field. The tree, one of a stand of old redwoods just beyond the fence, had been cut in advance almost all the way through. . ."
>VL 75
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>And it pays to read this episode all the way through—this is some of Pynchon's most passionate writing. I'll bet anarchy will be a big, big theme in "Against The Day". Anarchism is the central mcguffin of all of Pynchon's books. The great primordial scene of pure anarchy in literature has got to be "Suck Hour" from V. "The Zone" is the stateless state. "Mason & Dixon" tells a tale of our land's last moments of statelessness. "The Crying of Lot 49"—modes of getting messages through without the slightest chance the government will ever get their paws on your mail. And Vineland obviously is just a bunch of freaks kicking the gong around (and probably closest to Pynchon's true, everyday voice, riffing on passing social detritus and squeezing in a couple of appearances on the Simpsons in the bargain). If Against the Day is headed where I think it's headed, anarchy/statelessness will be a central and explicit theme.
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