IVIV (10) page 157

[Joseph Tracy]

My thinking about Jason Velveeta is that he is a reflection of larger  
arrangements of social status. His name is an odd mix, half classical  
quest to TRoy and home, half processed cheese, a true American. On  
the practical level he is a pimp selling asian girls who mock him but  
work for him; they see themselves as independent but must have some  
level of protection from him to be able to do that. The picture of  
ineptness is offset by the Rolls. He also seems to know something  
about the Golden Fang's operation as it impacts his neighborhood. The  
big players in heroin and prostitution at this time are the Mob, the  
KMT, and the police and governments that allow it. But the black  
gangs and pimps are a growing force  who will continue to grow. The  
only thing that makes Jason funny and inoffensive is that he is not  
beating his workers. He doesn't sort into a Vato &Blood  type  
suitable compartment.  He's either going to figure out he's in the  
wrong business, he'll get pushed out or killed, or he is doing a  
Steppin Fetchit  routine to keep an unthreatening profile while he  
works his way up.

I tend to think the latter and he represents a nastier "function in  
the socius" than the Steppin Fetchit routine betrays.
If so his info on the Fang gains weight. But maybe he is all 3. The  
different possibilities of a person one knows briefly.

If any of us could or did look back on the experiences of a given  
time like investigative reporters or criminal investigators I think  
there are many levels to what we would see: characters who seemed to  
embody directions and ideas and, moments when the veneer came away  
and we saw the violence and grinding lusts of large forces exposed in  
their rapaciousness, coincidences  and events that seem too shocking  
to propose as credible fiction, and realities we don't know what to  
do with.  Some of it would be funny. Maybe there is not a lot new  
here in IV but for me the new terrain is in a greater sympathy with  
the whole sick crew.  And for new readers of Pynchon, born in a world  
of search engines, there is still plenty going on here, a deviant and  
creative take on things that dares to hide as much as it reveals to  
ask as much as it gives.

I would defend IV in this way, in an age when everyone is hunting for  
the bad guys and refusing to notice the flag waving american who just  
picked their pocket, Pynchon is pointing to old fashioned follow the  
leads detective work. Plus he gives us gratuitous sex, drugs and rock  
and roll galore,  a playlist, and rather sweet vision of love as the  
thing that might make a difference in what we find and what we do,  
and whether it matters.


On Oct 15, 2009, at 10:36 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> rich  wrote:
>
>> Pynchon usually gives his characters some level of insight, and he
>> hardly is condescending in his many character depictions but this guy
>> Jason--the reader is encouraged to laugh at this guy in a rather well
>> condescending way. diminishes any humor we may get from his
>> foolishness.
>>
>> that's how I see it anyway
>
> I don't think he approves of pimps, though I could be projecting...
>
> the reference to "career counseling" once again points to expectations
> for a public educational system.  Counting Doc's reference to  
> "driver Ed"
> and the trading of insults with Bigfoot about each respectively  
> ditching
> chem classes where they would've conceivably learned important
> detecting lore, that makes three.  Not enough for a theme, but
> plenty for a motif.
>
> Also, it's not JV's possession of a Rolls Royce that's the determinant
> of whether he chose his career well, it's evident job satisfaction  
> and emotional
> suitability, as perceived by Jade, concurred in by Doc, and chosen  
> for the text.
>   (Going from Vato and Blood's thumbnail analysis of car owner
> types, if Jason were pimp material he'd drive not a Rolls Royce  
> (too jolly)
> but a Mercedes.)  Which leads to a notion of individuals as Maxwell's
> Demons, sorting
> each other into suitable compartments...
>
> The analytic level of granularity is approaching that of powdered
> sugar, and though
> I still find it sweet, the broad brushstrokes of Jason's portrayal  
> are initially
> offputting, like those of Vibe, for instance.  Is this part and parcel
> of a negative portrayal,
> going along with severe disapproval of the person's function in the  
> socius?
>
>
>
> -- 
> --- "Can't say it often enough -
> change your hair, change your life."
> - Sortilege