VL p. 246

[Robin Landseadel]

On Mar 2, 2009, at 8:41 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> We the Thanatoids haven't been wronged or betrayed . . .

Zoyd was betrayed by a set-up out of film-noir—Frenesi Gates, a  
damaged chick on the lam, "marries" a stoner sap, attempting to get  
some cover and winds up flipping for the state. Zoyd, dope that he is  
[William Macy or Elisha Cook Jr. in some hippie/stoner get-up  
accessorized to include Jeff Bridge's riffs on the noir sap] still  
moons for her—Love is Strange indeed. Weed [Jeff Goldblum] was  
betrayed for similarly cynical purposes. Like Carmen or Phyllis  
Dietrichson, fate and blood trump logic and reason once more. No  
matter how much feminism leaks into Pynchon's writing, the femme  
fatale still lurks.

I've been and I've known people who as activists received plenty of  
blowback in their lives due to actions in the name of civil rights.  
Remember that "V." came out in 1963, a high water mark for the civil  
rights era. We've got one of Pynchon's best scenes in Dixon's whipping  
of a slave-master. It really doesn't take much work to figure out  
which side Pynchon is on. I know that a lot of these one-time  
activists popped up in all sorts of new and interesting causes, and a  
lot of those folks wound up moving to that land Pynchon calls  
"Vineland": the green triangle north of Novato, Ca, and as far west as  
the wild west ever went. John Barth also places  the end of the road  
in Vineland,  but this time it's Vineland, New Jersey. George Daynor"s  
Palace of Depression in Vineland could be Thanatoid World all by its  
lonesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Depression

  There is that "End of the Road" quality to Mason & Dixon as well.

	South Mountain is the last concentration of Apparitions,- as you
	might say, Shape-'Morphers, and Soul-Snatchers, besides plain
	"Ghosts." Beyond lies Wilderness, where quite another
	Presence reigns, undifferentiate,—Thatwhichever precedeth
	Ghostliness ....
	M & D, p. 491


	The Moon has not yet risen. The Indian steps off the Path,
	motioning to them, to do the same. "This is troubling. They've
	been this far up already. See what you nearly stepp'd on." He
	crouches and fleetly retrieves a long, slender tho' not easily
	broken, Sliver of something from the TraiL "Swamp Cane. It
	doesn't grow up here,- they gather and splinter it, catch and kill
	Serpents, dip the Points into the venom,- set them in the Trail,
	aim'd toward us." Having gather'd as many of the deadly Points
	as he can find, he bends close to a small patch of untravel'd
	Ground. "Forgive me, for what I must now beg you to bear at my
	hands." Carefully he pushes each Point into the Earth, till only
	bits of the blunt ends remain.

	"These Catawbas," Mason falling increasingly short of perfect
	nonchalance. "How close are they, I wonder?"

	"Whoever set these, they weren't more than two, and they were
	moving fast. The main body could be anywhere south of here."

	" 'Twould be useful to know how far south ... ?" Dixon supposes.

	"He means, let us go on, into sure Ambuscado and Death,"
	Mason hastily, "he's a bit, what do you people call it?" Tapping
	his Nob and twirling his finger beside it. "Pray do not suppose
	all Englishmen to be quite so free of care."

	"By the time we get anywhere to tell anyone, they'll be
	someplace else.

	We'd better go back. For now, say nothing more, and try to
	move quietly."

	Mr. Barnes is troubl'd at the Depth of the Silence that reigns.
	"No longer frets th' intemperate Jay," he mutters, "- withal, the
	Siskin chirpeth not."

	"Cap'n, what the fuck is going on?"
	M & D, p. 676

[. . . .Mason & Dixon's mis-en-scene mirrors Gravity's Rainbow, an  
anarchy on the cusp of becoming a state.]

>  It's hard to reconcile both versions.

I guess that's what Against the Day is for. By following the Thanatoid  
trail back to the spiritual traditions of our karmic adjuster we  
consider the role of compassion in the equation of karma. Under all  
those mountains of erudition, drugs, polymorphous perversity and film  
citations lurks a zen moralist.