The Family-Vineland

[Rob Jackson]

Absolutely. DL & Takeshi, Blood & Vato, Hector & Zoyd, Brock & Roscoe,  
Zoyd's band, Isaiah's band, the Kunoichi sisters, the 'Mob', 24fps,  
PR3, the Star Trek crew, the Skipper & Gilligan ... there's a whole  
bunch of non-traditional 'families' in the novel that are represented  
directly or alluded to as exemplars, and which function as well as if  
not more effectively than the actual blood family relationships  
represented, the Traverse/Gates 'clan' shindig or RV circus at novel's  
close notwithstanding. Alternative 'family' structures and systems.  
It's an ongoing theme and it can be tracked backward through the works  
as well as forwards.

The environmental undercurrents of the text (e.g., anti-logging) and  
those Yurok myth overlays didn't seem to get much of a look-in this  
time around in the group read. The Tube, drugs, anti-Raygun stuff is  
the most obvious (and least interesting) component of this over-long  
and under-edited novel imo.

all best


On 24/04/2009, at 3:53 AM, pynchon-l-digest wrote:

> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:53:22 +1000
> From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: on The Family---for possible discussion re Vineland/TRP
>
> I've always taken the supposed Vineland/M&D/AtD focus on family in a
> pretty general sense - nothing to do with blood ties, more to do with
> the family you create around you. Mason and Dixon are (often sparring)
> brothers; Prairie's sister Che isn't necessarily the source of great
> advice but they have their capers; AtD sees individuals battling with
> the problems of their blood families and forming new alliances that
> become new families.
>
> The old "you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family"
> seems to be revised here. More like "you can't choose your birth
> family, but - maybe - you can choose the family that really matters".