[Robin Landseadel]

On Apr 21, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> Laura gives  a very telling overview of female characters. . .

> . . . On my 2nd read I decided the strongest feminist character in  
> VL is sister Rochelle. I t would be easy to dismiss her as a kind of  
> cartoon.

Great point: Vineland is very much rooted in its own time. This was a  
time when many writings appeared that echo Sister Rochelle's parables  
and sentiments.

> After all,  the ninjettes never really do anything.  I take the  
> ninjettes as mostly a projection of male authority fears about femi- 
> Nazis and all.

They are also icons of Movie & Tubal culture, much like Russ Meyer's  
ass-kicking big-boobed fallen angels.

> We see that they are actually novices of a new vision just trying to  
> establish new patterns of thought and behavior. After all there is  
> no intact matriarchal or Feminist social models and who could expect  
> something like that to emerge quickly in opposition to thousands of  
> years of culture and still be  in harmony with the unchangeable  
> aspects of biology.  I think in this regard sister Rochelle stands  
> in pretty well for the best aspect of Feminist leadership, first  
> simply by establishing something that is not dependent on  
> patriarchal power, and 2nd by not offering easy answers to  
> profoundly difficult challenges.

Think about where the author was perched—up in Aptos—and all the  
feminist writing emerging in 1980/1990. Tons of that floating around  
in Santa Cruz, Oakland, Berkeley, up in Mendocino. And Santa Cruz —the  
closest "Big Town" near Aptos—is a very bookish little college town.  
Sister Rochelle indicates some of that cultural ambience soaked in,  
even if only by osmosis.

> We see her through her interaction with Prairie, Takeshi , the  
> sisters and principally DL. Her key role in the novel is words of  
> wisdom and the maintenance and operation of the Puncutron which is a  
> healing counterforce to the Ninja death touch. This is very male  
> female stuff, since the Chi force is identified as  a polar  
> interplay between male and female energies . The Death touch comes  
> from a patriarchal martial art tradition, is set up by a patriarch  
> of the Mafia, to execute vengeance on an out of control warlord  
> type. It goes wrong , as vengeance is liable to do. So it seems to  
> me that we are looking at  male martial/death forces being countered  
> by female healing/life forces.

This is in keeping with notions of feminist spirituality emergent at  
the time of the book's publication, in works I've cited previously,  
like the writings of Susan Griffin and Mary Daly among many others.

> I would also say that one of the key life affirming or positive  
> ideas of the novel has to do with negotiation, and honest  
> reconciliation with the past.  This plays out in several male female  
> relationships,  most notably Takeshi and DL.

There's the negotiation that the author has to make for himself, as  
well:

	. . .were I to run into him today, how comfortable would I feel
	about lending him money, or for that matter even stepping down
	the street to have a beer and talk over old times? . . .
	Slow Learner, page 3

> I find Takeshi to be the most challenging and elusive character in  
> VL,  I think OBA invested a lot in Takeshi and wish we could spend  
> some time reviewing his role.


  A lot of the ideas that circle around Takeshi emerge in far greater  
detail in "Against the Day." Sometime in the not-so wayback  I  
jokingly claimed that the work-contents of "Against the Day" are  
really the footnotes to Vineland. Buddhist notions of Karma pervade  
Vineland in a way not found in the previous books. That idea of Karma  
resulting in a payoff of justice and the resolution of any number of  
plot threads—a real biggie in "Against the Day", as you may recall— is  
present here in Vineland. I suspect time & maybe even love has allowed  
our beloved author to start showing a little faith in the human race  
after the devastating bummer/climaxes of the previous two novels.

I suspect that some of Takeshi's elusiveness comes out of being made  
out of spare TV parts, old Godzilla movies and other cultural  
stereotypes. There's little bits and pieces of Buddhism sprinkled in  
the mix but only enough to tantalize. But Karma in the historic sense— 
as in Leonard Cohen's "Democracy is Coming to the USA"—is a big theme  
in the novel's finale. Thus the central role of the karmic adjustor.  
Good call.

I do suspect that the character of Takeshi makes this the "Japanese  
Insurance Adjustor" novel OBA claimed was in the hopper way back in  
the wayback.