Back on board for the Vineland journey: arrested development

[Joseph Tracy]

Ok, guess I'll start with some pompous bullshit mixed with truth  
about my long and deeply mourned absence from the list and then move  
to my   earnest and sincere eagerness to participate in the Vineland  
discussion -well maybe not 100% earnest, but  let us say good solid  
84% sincere. Because  as I am rereading Vineland, I think it is  
brilliant , profound and  deliberately accessible .  It is also  
personally delightful since I lived for 9 years in Arcata and he gets  
the ambience and culture right. For example there were a couple of  
campers with home made shingled shacks on the back in that area but I  
feel like I know the one he is describing.

The list thing is that it gets a little too digressive for my tastes.  
Like I think  the best book, best sci-fi movie lists could be cut by  
say 2/3 with no great loss. Also when posters put really thoughtful  
stuff on the table about the actual text it often goes without  
serious examination consideration or response.  And   the occasional  
mean-spiritedness  seems often just an inability to trust the force  
of  good argument  and the simple pleasures that come from a well  
crafted  put downs of ideas rather than a nasty personal put down of  
the dissenting poster. All in all that is a pretty pathetic list of  
gripes. Really it was just that the ATD discussion went on too long.
Nevertheless there are some brilliant contributions to my own  
understanding of Pynchon to be had here,  and I was hoping for a  
little feedback on my own thoughts , so I thought I would once again  
join in the madness.  I do wish there was a separate thread related  
just to the discussion of the novel. Also, I can take a turn as a  
discussion host if it is before mid June or after August.

You didn't miss me all that much? Sheeeit!

So here goes. Catching up.

  I was really walloped this time with the way P always seems to  
launch these  books. It feels light and breezy but is actually  
saturated with foreshadowing.  Before you turn the first page you  
have 1984, aerial bullies/ thieves in blue uniforms, the cultural  
role of TV, drugs, dreams with cosmic messages, and diet all on the  
table, but it doesn't feel overworked and the first time I read it,  
which was my first Pynchon read I missed most of it but felt a lot of  
it on subliminal level. Anyway the saturation doesn't weigh the  
reading down it invokes amusement, forward momentum ( even though  
Zoyd is headed for the Logjam) and curiosity.  Another central theme  
soon emerges. For me it came as a common psychological term as I was  
drifting toward sleep after the first chapter. That  term is  
"arrested development".  I presume this phase has been bandied about  
and don't know if it appears in the text,   but it was new and  
redolent to my thoughts I think because I know the story and the word  
arrested is more than figurative and taken literally, throws a  
different light  on the concept as explored in VL.

Well here we are again. Now we have over 50 channels all telling us  
we can and must move on and forget the past . War crimes behind, the  
2nd depression ahead but still wanting the its morning in America  
inauguration ball. But the prison bars that keep us from the  
testimony of yesterday's prisoners are the prison bars that keep us  
from changing the future.   It becomes harder and harder to imagine  
routes of escape,  or a return to some dismally inequitable "normal",  
let alone anything we can commonly agree on as better. I indulge in  
this political aside because for me it addresses the Novel's obvious  
relevance. We are stuck. The clean and orderly rape of the planet is  
losing its sexy appeal as we wake up to the fact that we too live  
here, but who wants to fight for better wages for vegetable pickers?

Back to arrested development: One usually thinks of this as  
pertaining to unfortunate personal habits or  stunting social  
experiences and limited to personal tragedy, but may it also be  
looked at as a major theme of human history and one that comes with  
the baggage of every civilization, and particularly authoritarian  
power structures.  That any society established by war and therefore  
imposing some form of rule by violence inhibits its own evolution  
because of the particular modes of development it presumes to "arrest".

The most powerful use of this technique of arresting and removing  
from circulation the opposition to the self granted claims of the  
ascendent empire is envisioned  and invoked by the great "patriots"  
of civilization in order  to shape social  forces such that    the  
society internalizes the contours of that civilization as if they are  
as natural and as unchallengeable as gravity or the forward momentum  
of time. Destiny, Fate, the Gods, the Chosen, the civilized, the  
strong, the master race, the smart. From Moses to Constantine to  
Augustine to Calvin to Smith to Friedman, all surviving religions  
become  religions of the state and seek to control the internal  
narrative of all.  We see from ATD that Pynchon is one of those who  
would tweak the world to challenge   or at least question the limits  
of gravity and time and even death.

  More arrested development: At the center of the story we have what  
seems like a nuclear family with every member in some state of  
arrested or limited development. There is an urge to attribute this  
arrested state to choice, to character, to internal wrong turns. That  
urge is all about personal freedom and choice and it is a mythology  
which is beautiful and powerful and for which I have a hard time  
imagining an acceptable alternative. The hero of 1984 is an  
affirmation of individual freedom but the world of 1984 poses a kind  
of inevitable triumph of  collective war  whose success is dependent  
upon arresting everyone in a state of mindless subservience and  
consumption. If fear doesn't keep you in line , your mind can be  
professionally adjusted.. I see Pynchon's notes in his intro to 1984   
as critical to understanding VL, because they are unambiguously non  
ironic, focused,  scholastically researched, and carefully argued.  
The members of this nuclear cluster all need to grow up , but what  
the hell does that exactly mean considering the momentum of their  
lives.  They are all like Indians well into a history of broken  
treaties. Some things can't be fixed , only avoided.

My point is that there really are bastards who want to beat the shit  
out of you and then get you to internalize it so you think you  
actually chose to get the shit beat out of you.   This happened to  
the soldiers who went to Vietnam and it happened to the young people  
who fought to stop the war, and it happened to a lot of black  
people.   Then there are people who don't want to beat the shit out  
of anybody   but end up at the wrong place at the wrong time,  
collateral damage.  Then there is money. In the interaction between  
human nature and historic struggles it seems to me that Pynchon  
avoids oversimplifications but even the apolitical  and  almost  
amoral Zoyd can tell who the fascist pricks are. In many ways the  
whole thing is like a native American warning story, watch out for  
the spirit beings in uniforms, mommas don't let yer daughters grow up  
to fuck G-men. Luke, I am your Father, and you too princess.









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