Paranoia & Pleasure: It's the video games, stupid

[Mark Kohut]

I like this.....one might say that in Vineland the 60s boomers gave up acting as full Jeffersonian-ideal, 60s ideal, citizens
and fell into an either-or life....
 
 


________________________________
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> a
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2012 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: Paranoia & Pleasure: It's the video games, stupid


These interpretations are interesting, and seem to have merit.  Too bad the novel doesn't speak so clearly.  Should we really need a Brurket to divine Pynchon's intentions? 

On Monday, December 24, 2012, alice wellintown wrote:

In a smart essay on Vineland, Richard Brurket argues that VL insists
>that the combination of paranoia and pleasure is no accident, but is a
>cultivated and solicited response to the force of law in America. The
>post-60s crew suffer from a sickness far more insidious than the one
>that Benny and Stencil searched for and avoided, an approach that is a
>close cousin to the paranoid pleasures of the post 60s boomers and the
>violent and cynical enthusiams of their children, and it share a
>family resemblance to the mindless pleasures of Slothrop's paranoid
>trippings through the zone, but it is darker because it involves a
>resignation, a surrender to the forces of and violent abuse of law.
>This cynical certitude, a sense that the law is what is, a violent
>force that one can more avoid nor challange, causes the boomers'
>children to reject the movements, peace, civil rights, feminist...of
>their parents and join the violent supression of those who would
>challange the violent enforcement of law. So King and Park, though not
>present in the novel, are tossed under the bus. Popular culture,
>delivered by the Tube solicits and manufactures a consent, a paranoid
>pleasure in the voyeur who watches the violent abuse of others by law
>enforement. Prarie's boyfriend, the violence enthusiast who has his
>finger on the pulse of the young generation sees this trend not a a
>danger to democracy or to civil rights but as a business opportunity.
>Yes, it's the video games.
>
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