Zoyd

[John Carvill]

Good post, Laura.

> I think both VL and ATD were hampered by not having a strong protagonist.  I

I certainly agree in the case of ATD. But I never felt a need for a
more definitive protagonist in VL. I suppose I just plugged straight
into Zoyd, but then found myself being pulled off into teh Frenisi
stream, and didn't mind too much. Plus we always come back to Zoyd. I
think ATD was much more imbalanced, much more in need of one or more
protagonists. A *lot* of stuff I was expecting to happen in that book
just never happened, and of course Pynchon comments on it towards the
end of the book, saying something like "you may well ask, what
happened to...." an amusing echo of "you will want cause and effect"
but still frustrating.


>
> >  Because he's such a strong protagonist, we can afford to spend time with the supporting characters, returning to him as a safe haven when things get too confusing.  More than that, the confusion and paranoia we feel as readers (what the hell is this about?  Who's voice is this?  I don't understand what I'm > reading right now!) helps us bond with Slothrop, since he feels exactly the same way.

Yes, spot on.


> COL49:  Oedipa, strong protagonist, introduced p. 1, sympathetic,

Sympathetic, despite being a Republican!

>  Who murdered the '60s?  But the answer is screamed too loud:  Manson.

Ah well I'm not so sure it's that simple. The Manson stuff is
impossible to miss of course, but maybe Pynchon is saying that the
dream, the beach, whatever was 'good' about 'The Sixties', was
inherenly flawed from the start, and that Manson (and the Hells Angels
at Altamont, and...) just happened to find that fragility, either
consciously or unconsciously exploiting a vulnerability which was
always there, ready to bring the whole edifice crashing down, and
plunge us all into the Nixonian Reaction that had always been waiting
in the wings. Forgive the mixed metaphors.

Cheers
J