"heart" in Pynchon's novels

[Rob Jackson]

Mark Kohut:
> There is more 'heart', and its tracing to sources in AtD than in any  
> other of Pynchon's novels....
>
> And what is Doc?

... I think it’s because VL and M&D have family and friendship  
respectively as the core thematic impetus of the narratives that there  
does seem to be much more “heart” – empathy, engagement, sentiment,  
what have you – than even GR, Lot 49 or V. The three earlier works do  
compensate with their other unique and remarkable attributes for this  
lack of … “warmth”…  at the level of character and situation, however.

best regards


>> > From: Rob Jackson <jbor@[omitted]>
>> > Subject: Re: Van Meter
>> > To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>> > Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 9:38 AM
>> > > Zoyd is no Van Meter, who, in
>> > turn, is no Frenesi/Flash
>> >
>> > Yes, this hierarchy seems about right, and even though many
>> > of Flash's priors aren't spelled out in the narrative,
>> > he is probably a notch beyond Frenesi, at least in terms of
>> > "criminal" activity and the extent/s to which he has been
>> > "turned". Flash's past is detailed only very vaguely because
>> > it's the unwritten code in this milieu when referring to
>> > "miscellaneous folks in out of the night" (8), "politicals
>> > fleein' from different jurisdictions" (25), and so forth, to
>> > couch the references to illicit activity in ambiguous terms
>> > and not name names, which is why Zoyd doesn't ever
>> > explicitly drop Van Meter's name as a snitch. And which is
>> > also why "snitching" is such a big deal, breaking that
>> > code.
>> >
>> > But there does seem to be a little bit of parallelling
>> > going on as well: Zoyd with wise-cracking Prairie and
>> > Frenesi and Flash with precocious young Justin. It's a
>> > typical sit-com conceit: one of VL's themes, underdeveloped
>> > as many of them are in the novel, seems to be that "the
>> > child is father of the man". The later descriptions
>> > recalling the time that Zoyd and VM looked after Prairie as
>> > a baby after Z had escaped from Brock Vond's clutches are
>> > also very sympathetic.
>> >
>> > At the end of the novel, even despite Zoyd's hypocrisy and
>> > complicity, Frenesi's sleeping with and working for the
>> > enemy, and Flash's shadowy past and present, they're all
>> > ultimately welcomed back into the family fold of the
>> > "Traverse-Becker annual reunion". So there is a sense of
>> > forgiveness there as well, even for Frenesi and Flash. It's
>> > sentimental and cheesy and akin to the obligatory sit-com
>> > pay-off, but self-consciously so, and there is a degree of
>> > "heart" in VL which seems to be absent from the two most
>> > recent novels.
>> >
>> > all best