Zuniga Zoyd

[Joseph Tracy]

On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:09 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> fascist avoidance, genocide aversion, vowel exclusion its all good  
> but on the theory that some are working their way through chapter  
> 14. perhaps spome thoughts on the Zuniga Zoyd games ,several of  
> which play out in the early part of Ch  14.  Why por exemplo are we  
> at the end of the alphabet?

Okay Tracy, let me make a little suggestion.   I always start with  
Names in Pynchon. Hector Zuniga. Hector is the great warrior defender  
of Troy against the invading Greeks; the fight is all about a woman.  
He fights with Ajax kills many , gets killed by Achilles. Gods watch  
led by Zeus changing sides and making side bets. Zuniga is a  
lieutenant in Carmen,  hot for Carmen and trying to vex the love of  
Carmen and Jose and move in himself, he moves the plot forward at  
several points..Carmen's love, of course is not exactly reliable.

So a lot of this applies to our little story. Small battle for woman  
reflects big battle for soul of America, that free and easy babe with  
the magic honeypot. Hector Zuniga is both a little and a big player.  
The whole Reagan... program relies on carrying out orders without  
regard for petty constitutional restraint, on a fair amount of Job  
insecurity. Hector  does the Job. He is also a true believer and  
lives to keep alive the great cop show tradition in which the good  
guys are winning and the nasty druggies and reds don't stand a chance  
of corrupting America's youth. He likes Zoyd, would like to see him  
fit into the American Dream but the light in his eyes is going out,  
his TV dreams are hollowing him out, turning him into a cartoon crazy.

Zoyd seems to many within th story like a bit player, But again and  
again he is the one on the field of battle, and he has something that  
he found out in those dark forays into the tule fog, into the  
California Rock and roll nights, the wild surf,  the travels into the  
city and the woods, the jails and the ecstasy . He has discovered his  
own immortality and has taken a little of the soul of America in his  
daughter out of the battle and into the wilds of freedom.  It isn't  
safe secure or without dark corners, but it isn't the Suburbs either.

Kinda funny that right now we are watching the foundations shake.  
It's like they brought blind Samson into the temple and are now  
surprised to see the stones are falling, Its like Vond went a little  
too far and found himself in a dark hole with his bones removed.  It  
isn't funny or happy, but it kinda looks like the longhairs and  
visionaries of the 60's, the Tofflers and the Snyders and the Dylans  
saw much that was real.