AtD/VL: The Traverse Clan

[Ian Livingston]

> I don't think there are *any* union members on this list.

Well, I'm a former one. I had to sign up to keep my job once. Paid
dues for a few years and found out the dues got you nothing, but that
they helped support the extravagant tastes of the union brass. Lots of
gold jewelry on em, in their Cadillacs, and a ditzy dame in every
other seat. Was already pretty anti-union because of the jobs I
couldn't get until I paid the dues--which I couldn't afford until I
got the job. Also watched incompetent slugs rise in the ranks by
duration rather than skill. It is the corrupt nature of the American
unions that made them weak, not Reagan's strike-breakers. They just
used the unions' preexisting weaknesses against the failing
institutions. It was different before the unions went big business,
when they represented true, socialist ideas that worked to slow the
rampage of capitalism for a while.

>--- Disloyal women: from Lake's sleeping and living with the murderer of her father to Frenesi's
>cooperating with the enemy plus leaving her child. And perhaps Prairie will carry on the curse.

Any chance P may be using the mother archetype? Before the advent of
paternal families, it was common for women to have many mates, such
that paternity was generally uncertain. The Mother as archetype thus
often includes the aspects of virgin/whore/crone. According to Jung's
studies, the queen must always leave the old, dying king for his son.
Part of the informing background of the Oedipus story, no doubt.

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 3:10 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
>> "'Political family,' Zoyd remarked, 'for sure.'" (Vineland, p. 372)
>>
>> The Traverse Clan bridges more than a century and connects Against the Day
>> with Vineland. On the social micro-level it's the largest figuration in
>> Pynchon's whole universe.. . .
>
> There are many counterexamples by way of the same or similar name appearing
> in P's books not referring to the same critter.
>
> In the US we have extremely weakened unions. US Labor has been mostly
> apolitical and this may be the failure of Labor rather than the often
> misstated message of VL as the "students didn't connect with Labor." I don't
> think the thread from VL to AtD is strong enough to support the claim that
> AtD is further exploration of labor topics in VL.
>
> I don't think there are *any* union members on this list.
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."