belated End of CH 14 315-322

[Joseph Tracy]

Summary with personal comments

Zoyd and Prairie ride the bus north.
”headin for nothing but trees, fish, and fog, Slick, from here on in…
…she looked at him with a wide smile ,“Fiss.”
He wakes in the bus in the rain with Prairie talking to the giant  
redwoods they pass . Soon a bunch of fellow travelers are playing  
music from rock to Motown, folk, fifties stuff and finally a guitar &  
harmonica playing the blues. ( There are some great radio stations  
from Santa Rosa on and it was part of why  I always felt a lot better  
driving north by the time I was getting close to Arcata. ) Zoyd  
catches up toVan Meter in Eureka; VM is driving Z’s Dodge Dart. They  
pick up Prairie and go to Vineland. The Journey is over and the  
remainder of the chapter is about  the geography, and culture and  
history  of Vineland.  I lived in Arcata for most of a decade and  
paid closer attention this time to see if Vineland was a specific  
place in this region . It isn’t. P borrows details from Eureka,  
Arcata, Trinidad, Blue Lake, Mckinleyville,  and Crescent City and  
blends them.  There are six rivers there and his Vineland is on the  
7th. It is most like Eureka which has a long spit connected by an art  
Deco bridge to the mainland, 101 passes through it  with regular  
street traffic, and it has a community college called the College of  
the redwoods, but it’s a blend.

The swap meet is real, the land developers, the ornate victorians,  
surfers,flower children, there were daffodil fields 300 yards down  
the street from our house, the Finnish Country Hot Tub(Shangri La)  
and Sauna is in Arcata, the Bigfoot stories, the L.A. people adapting  
to the local economy, the live music and theater,the powerful  
presence of the Yurok and Tolowa culture, spirit world and people,  
the ghost towns and abandoned houses in the hill-country. He gets it  
right along with the old school Logger lefties, grangers etc. Pynchon  
obviously loved it and so did I. The beaches are beautiful and  
uncrowded and the rivers are the greatest place in the world to white  
water raft, the summers provide an endless supply of wild  
blackberries, and the Redwoods surround you with the spirits of the  
ancient Forest. I remember taking a 2 person inflatable Kayak along  
part of the Trinity with my son  and  beaching for a while and  
finding ripe concord grapes  on a wild vine. Vineland the good is  
still real in some places.  Definitely shared that feeling with Zoyd  
of having chosen right, for a change.

  Stuff to talk about

Thoughts on Van Meter?   Zoyd reminds me style wise of Ry Cooder, one  
of my favorites, who once played with Don Van Vliet, aka Captain  
Beefheart.

I feel like the Thanatoids (along with some more metaphysical  
implications)  in Ch 14 are a stand in for the invasion of suburbia.

Anyone know anything about Elizabeth Claire Prophet? That’s who I  
thought of with Cousin Claire the paranormal.

Sorry about cutting this so close to the official beginning of CH  
15 , tomorrow,  Robin. Am looking forward to the wild conclusion of  
our literary ride.


‘Preciate the chance to host  a chapter, and think about a good  
book.   This chapter was personal, so kinda nice. This is the first  
Pynchon novel I read, and it hooked me like a happy Fiss.