Vineland, page 3 ("Wake up, Zoyd!")

[Rob Jackson]

There's definitely symbolism and omens in that first sentence: "Later  
than usual", "1984", "a creeping fig" (which has crept into, or  
infiltrated, Zoyd's house), "hung", "hung in the  window", "squadron",  
"stomping around on the roof". But the grammar and flow of it are  
perfectly fine as far as I can see.

The blue jays are deployed figuratively; they're like a SWAT team  
which has disturbed Zoyd's peace. Elsewhere on Wikipedia: 'The word  
"jay" has an archaic meaning in American slang meaning an impertinent  
person.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay) And there are going be a  
whole lotta people sticking their beaks into Zoyd's business  
(including one notoriously nosey novelist).

But the first part of the sentence also sets up Zoyd as idle and  
apathetic, perhaps politically so (i.e., he has slept in "[l]ater than  
usual", just like Rip van Winkle, and the time and tide have turned  
again so that the '60s have given way to "Amerika" and "1984"). In  
this respect, Zoyd is Pynchon, who has been idle for many years and  
derelict in his novelistic duty, which is to prod the consciousness  
and conscience of the reading public. So, my guess is that it was  
actually the author himself who woke up one morning in 1984 and,  
realising that he'd slept in later than usual, that there were cops  
and helicopters stomping about on people's roofs, he started to put  
pen to paper. That it took him six years to write the novel, and that  
even so it's padded out with crap he'd had sitting around since 1962  
(the Godzilla stuff), doesn't bode well for the new book at all.

The Wheel of Fortune conceit is quite wonderful, and the Star Trek  
allusions among others betray a distinct fondness for (some) TV at  
least.

It's a shame that the rest of the novel doesn't live up to this fine  
opening sequence.

cheers

On 03/12/2008, at 4:43 AM, pynchon-l-digest wrote:

> Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 11:08:36 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
> From: Robert Mahnke <robert_mahnke at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: Re. Vineland, page 3
>
> I'm not sure that I've ever lingered on the sunlight portion of that  
> sentence, though I agree that the usage is a little odd.  It  
> suggests that the light is not just a noun but its own verb, and if  
> I'd ever taken high school physics I might be able to connect the  
> grammar to something more substantive and profound.
>
> I always trip over the squadron of blue jays stomping around on the  
> roof.  I'm not the birding expert my father is, but I thought of  
> jays as relatively solitary, not social animals. Apropos of this,  
> Wikipedia says jays form monogomous pairs for life, and that they  
> may band together to mob potential predators.  Wikipedia also  
> suggests that the blue jay's range doesn't usually extend as far  
> west as California, but for the occasional stray (a point lacking a  
> citation, ominously, so take that for what it's worth).  When I  
> lived in California, I loved to watch Steller's Jays, which are blue  
> jays but not Blue Jays.  (Photos here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller%27s_Jay 
>  (scroll down).) (Echoes of COL49: Steller's Jays are named after  
> Georg Wilhelm Steller, a German naturalist who spent most of his  
> career in Russia and Siberia, and who joined Bering on a 1741 trip  
> to Alaska.)  I read that first sentence and want to see Steller's  
> Jays.  But then, Pynchon didn't capitalize "blue!
>  jay," and it's not like Zoyd can even see them if they're on the  
> roof....