Narrative Distance "the price of developing any real life shared with

[Tore Rye Andersen]

alice wrote:
 
> A major target of Pynchon's satire is this quest to remain forever
> young. And, for the most part, it is the males who are targets--the
> Flanges, Zoyds and Reefs and so on.
 
> This has become a standard in Pynchon's novels. His American males are
> little boys inside, unwilling to pay the price and grow up and into a
> new inter-dependent relationship--have a family.
 
and later:
 
> We need to read Doc as a target of harsh satire. It will be even
> tougher to do than in VL, where Zoyd is the target [...].
 
I guess I'm with you part of the way (even though I wouldn't call
the satire "harsh" - Pynchon clearly loves those characters), but
I think your argument is severely weakened by including Zoyd in the
equation. If anyone is the target of harsh satire in VL, it is
Frenesi. She's the one who is still a little boy - uh, girl - inside.
she's the one who runs away from her family, unwilling to pay 
the price and grow up, constantly dropping into her little-girl
routine when she wants to evade responsibility for her actions.
 
Zoyd, on the other hand, may be a little immature, and he may smoke
too much weed, but still, he's the one who sticks with Prairie. He's
the one who manages to cobble together a decent existence with various
odd jobs, the one who (mostly) makes sure that there's Count Chocula
for Prairie in the morning. He's the one who keeps bringing her to 
those epic Traverse/Becker family reunions year after year (even 
though he's only a Wheeler and feels like an outsider). In short, 
while Frenesi is out frolicking with the boys, he's the one who pays
the price, who tends Prairie while she's sick (VL, 321), and who does 
the, yes, the work.
 
The target of harsh satire? I don't think so.
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