Vineland, page 3

[Lawrence Bryan]

A few years ago after reading Vineland, I came across a reference that  
commented on what a beautiful word "prairie" is. Seems to me it was in  
something by Tom Robbins, probably Cowgirls. I just remember when I  
read it I immediately thought of Zoyd's daughter.

Lawrence

On Nov 30, 2008, at 4:01 PM, Robin Landseadel wrote:

>          ". . . .Zoyd Wheeler . . .
>
> Wheeler family, includes daughter Prairie Wheeler just down
> the page.
>
> "Wheeler" points to Zoyd's beach cruiser---Zoyd's got a fair
> amount in common with Jeffrey Lebowski - The Dude ---but
> also sets us up for "Prairie Wheeler". As the daughter turns
> out to be the quester in this book, the "prayer wheel" aspect
> of her name turns out to be central.
>
>          " . . .drifted awake in sunlight through a creeping fig. . ."
>
>          Ficus pumila. . .   . . .(creeping fig or "climbing fig")  
> is a
>          woody evergreen vine that is native to East Asia. As the
>          common names would suggest, it has a creeping habit
>          and is often used as a houseplant  . . .
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_pumila
>
>
>        " . . .that hung in the window, with a squadron of blue jays
>        stomping around on the roof.
>
>> The Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) is a jay native to western  
>> North America,
>> closely related to the Blue Jay found in the rest of the continent,  
>> but with a black
>> head and upper body. It is also known as the Long-crested Jay, the  
>> Mountain
>> Jay, and the Pine Jay. It is the only crested jay west of the Rocky  
>> Mountains.
>> The Steller's Jay shows a great deal of regional variation  
>> throughout its range.
>> Blackish-brown-headed birds from the north gradually become bluer- 
>> headed
>> farther south. The Steller's Jay has a more slender bill and longer  
>> legs than the
>> Blue Jay and has a much more pronounced crest.
>
> . . .and tends to be like:
>
>           . . . the Red-tailed Hawk, which has the effect of causing  
> other birds and prey
>          creatures to vacate feeding areas as the Steller's Jays  
> approach.
>
>          The Red-Tailed Hawk is a member of the genus Buteo, a group  
> of medium-sized
>          raptors
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_Hawk
>
>          Raptor, Rapist, Rapture:The Dark Joys of Social Control in
>          Thomas Pynchon's Vineland
>
>          "With his own private horrors further unfolded into an  
> ideology of the mortal and
>          uncontinued self, Brock came to visit, and strangely to  
> comfort, in the half-lit
>          hallways of the night, leaning in darkly in above her like  
> any of the sleek raptors
>          that decorate fascist architecture." Thomas Pynchon,  
> Vineland.
>
>          Between 1963 and 1973, the American author Thomas Pynchon  
> (born in 1937)
>          published three novels: V. (1963); The Crying of Lot 49  
> (1966); and Gravity's
>          Rainbow(1973). Taken together, these dense, critically  
> acclaimed books form a
>          kind of loosely intertwined trilogy in which certain  
> characters and themes
>          occasionally reappear. The very length of Gravity's Rainbow  
> (over 700 pages
>          long) seemed to suggest that, with its publication, a cycle  
> -- perhaps the cycle --
>          had been completed. Maybe Pynchon would never publish  
> another novel. How
>          could he? What more could he have left to say? As the years  
> (the 1980s) went
>          by and a fourth Pynchon novel didn't come out, it seemed  
> that the author --
>          well-known for keeping his "private life" truly private,  
> for not even allowing his
>          photograph to be taken -- had indeed quit when he was  
> ahead, and stopped
>          writing novels.
>
>          And so, it was something of a surprise when, in 1990,  
> Pynchon finally published
>          Vineland, his fourth novel. . .
>
> http://www.notbored.org/vineland.html
>