IVIV (8): An Occasional Certified Zombie

[alice wellintown]

This seems wrong to me. Why apply the idea or concept of a Preterite
from  GR to VL?  Again, that the term is not used in VL only weakens
the argument.  What's not said is not said. What is in the text is
surely more important than what is not in it.

 The claim that the term is not used,  but the concept is,  is further
weakened by the qualification that the author uses the term "loosely."

Also, the "since he is not a Calvinist" argument doesn't make any
sense. It doesn't matter what he is. What matters is that he does use
the term and the concept in GR as it has been used by American authors
before him (some of the Calvinist stock, such as Melville, some of the
Unitarian to Puritan such as Hawthorne--Pyncheon and
Pynchon--characters in HSG and the author's own ancestors).

see, as You will recall, Monroe, Dwight Eddins' Gnostic Pynchon

The ideas outlined here can not be described or understood using the
terms from GR (i.e., Preterite).  VL has its own terms and ideas.

As noted, the terms and ideas are deliberately "muddied." To muddy-up
the muddy ideas of VL by applying a term that is not even used by the
author in the text,  strikes me as just bad reading. Zuniga doesn't
fit because he's not a character in GR.

Also, GR is not quite a Postmodern text (see McHale). VL is. So, to
apply the terms of GR to VL is also, tantamount to a Modern Reading of
a Postmodern text.

> [*The term "preterite," is a Calvinist theological reference meaning
> "those passed over by God, or those not elected to salvation or
> eternal life." Thus, a preterite is anyone living life with no promise
> of redemption -- the true condition of everyone who faces life
> honestly. Pynchon's compassion for these universal losers is central
> to his work.
>
> The term does not appear in Vineland, but the concept does -- and in
> any case, Pynchon uses it loosely. Since he's not really a Calvinist
> (nor, we suspect, a Believer in any conventional way), he often uses
> the concept to describe those without power. Vond, who has power, is
> elected. Zoyd, who doesn't really have power, is preterite -- as are
> the Thanatoids. DL and Takeshi, who have at least some power, are
> somewhere in between.
>
> On an even simpler level, Pynchon believes in Good (Preterite) Things
> and Bad (Elect) Things. Good Things include musicians, Hohner F harps,
> ukuleles, hip forties slang, zoot suits, dope, etc. (This clearly
> makes Zoyd, DL, and Takeshi Good/Preterite.) Bad Things includes
> power, the elite, Reagan politics, etc. (Vond is clearly Bad/Elect.)
> What makes tragedy and suspense is that there are things (and
> particularly people) that are both, or in between, or of unknown
> quality. Frenesi has both good and bad qualities; Zuniga does too.]