Blodwen and Millard save the republic

[peterthooper at juno.com]

Vineland has a lot of sub plots

 1) Zoyd Wheeler in 1984 is getting squeezed by the DEA and stands to lose his home and custody of his daughter

 2) Frenesi and DL (journalism-degreed Frenesi, and martial-arts-trained DL) female friends in a news collective, making an alternative (truer) version of the news back in the 60s, and how they were involved in the take over of a college by the students (they renamed it People's Republic of Rock and Roll, or PR3)

 3) Brock Vond's interactions with Zoyd and Frenesi, and eventually with their daughter (whose name is Prairie), exemplifying the profoundly immoral nature of the War on Drugs and Nixon's Cointelpro, and also man's fascistic tendencies and woman's tendency to succumb to them.

 4) Takeshi and DL, after the fall of PR3, DL is forced by the Mafia to try to assassinate Brock Vond (because they don't like the DEA either) but due to bad contact lenses she instead puts a martial arts whammy on Takeshi, a Japanese guy who looks a bit like him.As penance, DL is sentenced by her sensei to hang with Takeshi and help him with his "karmic readjustment" business, which is another whole ball of confusion...

 5) The daughter, Prairie,  goes on a gig with her boyfriend's band, where she meets up with Takeshi and DL, and through their circle of acquaintances hears for the first time the story of her mom's activities in the 60s (because Zoyd, brokenhearted, wouldn't tell her)

 6) Frenesi, after the fall of PR3, is kidnapped by Brock Vond, fed tranquilizers, and put into a federal program of paid informants. She eventually comes to a family reunion - all her relatives are like these staunch left wingers, iww union people, socialists etc. And finally gets to see Prairie again (and Zoyd)

 I've mentioned sub plots but to tell you a bit of the structure still doesn't even give any spoilers! The delight is in the details. Oh it's good on so many levels. It got written off by a lot of people but it's so insightful!

 Anyway, the Marquis de Sod reference is sapient because de Sade was this loathsome aristocrat who abused his privilege to wreak sexual havoc, and boasted about it. He is lionized by a bunch of philosophers, even some feminists.But my reaction to him is unfavorable - he's a lot like some public figures through the ages, a vicious sociopath who deserves no prominence and whose influence it's wise to ignore or deflect as much as possible. Or counter with something actually good and worthwhile.
 (seller's market on that stuff, most of the time. like in GR, needing the Purpurstoff to verify even friends!) 

If modern philosophers quote de Sade, I think they are really just making their own analyses and using his name for shock value to sell books, but it diminishes their credibility. Just like lesser evils in a body political might ride the great man's (Frenesi's mom Sasha says, "it's always a man") stinking, stained coattails to their own ultimate detriment as politicians and people.

 Pynchon's choice of the name Marquis de Sod brings to mind how the legitimate uprising of the French Revolution against the aristocratic class de Sade belonged to, was itself polluted by the violent tendencies that de Sade celebrated and burned its noble impulses out in purges and guillotinings. (Perhaps furthered in this ruination by de Sade himself actually joining the new gov't, though that's a research project for another time, or something)

 Louis and Marie Antoinette would've been much better propaganda as prisoners, or made examples of by being forced to actually work for a living, and the abolition of that abomination known as privileged classes - er, wait, nothing that bad about being a privileged class, actually what we need to abolish is underprivileged classes, right? whoa, not abolish the people in them, but like reclassify them with some usable privileges, or like put some check on the privilege of taking other people's privileges  (Millard Hobbs also an interesting choice of name, Hobbes was the solitary poor nasty brutish and short guy, right? So Hobbes without the "e", "Hobbs", is that karmically different? Is life without a reigning Leviathan state gonna be just local warlords imposing their twisted notion of discipline? Or is the slight difference in spelling, like Marquis de Sod, Hobbs, shorter, less like an imperialist British name more like an American enlightened despot with a sense of humor about the whole thing and really not such a bad guy? Like, he may work Zoyd pretty hard but he isn't really going to sodomize him for 120 days or something like that fricken perv de Sade, and he isn't  gonna necessarily advocate a Leviathan state like that monarchy apologist Hobbes)  Social emancipation, difficult even to define - that cause certainly wasn't expedited by the Reign of Terror. Au contraire! 
Anyway, the ever present struggle is to avoid being exploited but yet also not to exploit. Or as here suggested, to redefine the struggle in a much more comfortable way: my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

 The Marseillaise is a call to arms, to rally the French to repel foreign invaders. "Allons enfants ou la Patrie" means something like up and at 'em, but it sounds a lot like "a lawn savant who'll lop a tree-uh"

 For me, that's funny enough, like his joke in the earlier book, _Gravity's Rainbow_ (which is pretty involved, Major Marvy is a corrupt US Army guy who among his other misdeeds has a fur-smuggling operation, using young German kids to convey stolen minks. He expresses gratitude for their help, promising to get them all good jobs in the movies using his connections with Cecil B DeMille. His skeptical friend says that they are unlikely to get really good jobs, but instead would probably only be employed as galley slaves in one of DeMille's Roman epics. Major Marvy demurs, claiming, "No! For DeMille, young fur-henchmen can't be rowing!" Like the Vineland pun, the French come into play, and showbiz...but anyway)

 Intelligent people have unpacked a lot of references - I used to groan in English class when the teacher or prof would ask what the meanings were, does everything durn it have to have a hidden meaning? Like in that movie "Barcelona" (1994) where the guy goes, nobody ever talks about what's over the subtext. 
 but eventually learned that it's often enjoyable and informative. 
First, naming a lawn service after the Marquis de Sade both compares and contrasts the type of endeavor. A lawn service is essentially a working class endeavor. The theme of labor uncompensated and undercompensated runs through the book.

 So the company starts as a proletarian concern, but the choice of name and the way it's run - these are details mentioned in the same section - using contract help instead of w-2 help, indicates a lack of commitment to employees, and in turn as Zoyd talks with Blodwen, the owner's spouse (Marchioness?) the topic comes up of all the garnishments for creditors, child support and tax liens she has to deal with when paying her contractors (indicating they in turn are unable and/or unwilling to meet their commitments, at least partially due to the insufficiency of their wages)(although from the employer's standpoint, demonstrable commitment from the worker is also a rara avis as with the alligator sewer workers in _V._ )

 So from thinking it's a lot different, now it seems that like an hereditary noble, an employer has a position of leadership, and like de Sade, de Sod exploits the workers, misuses the position. And the blurring, or maybe conflation, or maybe just the relation of power and sexuality is brought to the fore. The employer wants - needs - the worker to come to work. How can this be made to happen? Worst case scenario is like Brock Vond's s&mified solution as he explains to Frenesi: "a man with a big gun will have to make you come." Like slavery and Trotsky's threats to families to impress soldiers, and press gangs and chain gangs, taxes, the draft, would the Marquis do any less? 

 Yet it's not quite that simple. Zoyd is actually friendly with the owner. And considering the abuses that workers can inflict on business owners, a tough stance might seem a necessity. (the solution of being so nice no one wants to attack or cheat you is another option, but how do you deal with exceptions?)

  So, if one is a good worker like Zoyd, the business might not be such a terribly exploitative environment, and the reference to de Sod rather than de Sade is humorous - the harsh discipline being reserved for the grass they are laying, and trimming. Yet looking once more, from a deep ecology POV, isn't  there a suggestion that this whole idea of having lawns is unnatural, and cruel to the way that nature intended, killing off perfectly viable and useful plants and insects with chemicals just so as to have a verdant lawn - and claiming the grass loves it!? 

At this point, it occurs to me that the useful notion "nobody's perfect" can be applied (even if they hire their guys on and give them a raise, some might still default on their responsibilities. also some other landscaper might undercut them. if they switch to all organic, neighbors' effluvia still might toxify their customers' lawns.  and how the heck can you even have a house or lawn without displacing worthy fauna and flora? best to look for the good you can do and enjoy...and maybe, organize, although mourning some of those things and people, come on, they are missed, vines like those shading Zoyd's windows have long been lopped or defoliated, in any number of ways made absent, and the sun shines harsh thru Frenesi and Flash's window...but anyways, nobody's poifect, we request the hope to do what we can, we want the perfect to maintain cordial diplomacy with the good, eg)

 Zoyd's in trouble with the DEA because of his potsmoking, (and do you suppose the pot wants to be smoked? hmmm, maybe it does, but it probably took a lot of training which how much does that differ from the Marquis's methods? "we love eet!")

 and also because of his association with his ex-wife's liberal politics, and political power, any stripe of 
which as Mao may have suggested once before (so have a banana) is emitted from weaponry unfortunately also available to the likes of Brock Vond, 

and because of potential rivalry to Vond for her affections although he has had almost any reasonable hope for that pounded out of him.So he turns for help to his sometime employer, and although it's clear that working for the Marquis de Sod isn't a picnic, there is some joy to be found there. Because of previous work that he did, of course, but at least the Marquis doesn't stiff him.



 When the Marseillaise is subjected to wacky improvement for their TV spot, instead of a call to arms, it's an invitation to discipline at the hands of "a lawn savant" which means literally a learned master of a field of knowledge, but I notice a slight connotation of "idiot savant" as well: American business focuses narrowly on its profits and its products (in this case the lawn) but is less available for help on lucrative, safe employment and ecological responsibility. Like, perhaps, even to a pathological degree like their French namesake. 

By taking the name they're acknowledging that it can look like that, but in practice, on an individual case basis, there are mitigating factors.  

There's an interplay of horror at how bad things can actually be (lopping a tree indicates the ability to wreak destruction)but also then the acceptance that disciplined power is at least better than undisciplined power, lopping a tree to improve a view or make room for a garden or to use as lumber is different than lopping haphazardly. 

And by referring humorously to the notorious power abuser de Sade, (if we're in a position to take it that way) they're softening the blow, like the dwarves when they sing that song about "chip the glasses and break the plates...that's what Bilbo Baggins hates!" 

Hearkening back to _Gravity's Rainbow_ "it's all theatre" - and thereby, indeed, hangs an interesting backstory, of how Millard Hobbs and his wife Blodwen came to own The Marquis de Sod. As an aspiring Brechtian actor, Blodwen and Millard came up into the fertile hinterlands and environs of Vineland via a lysergically fueled road trip, culminating in a cabin in the woods, which they came to own, apparently by standing their ground, pounding the pavement, joining the ad business like Flange in "Lowlands." Only instead of getting diverted by the likes of Pig Bodine, he makes TV spots for The Marquis De Sod, bargaining for a share in the business and eventually buying the owner out. 

 Instead of pounding the boards and chewing the scenery in the world of theatre,  he brings dramatic skills into the world of commerce. Leavens the landscaping business with humor, showmanship, family business...much more of a joint endeavor than the other family business (Wayvone's patriarchal seven leveled manor.)(for which The Marquis might even be a vendor, come to think of it) Anyway, the suggestion is that serious theatrical talent, Brecht is as serious as they come,  isn't he? Serious talent found its way into advertising, and this began to be felt.

 (and yet again, there's the suggestion that it is indeed "that bad"...or at least that things could be better.

 He focuses on Frenesi's family, staunch unionists, at other places in the book to show the problems of their point of view and their perceived solutions.

 But they remain aware because of continuing ills caused by ongoing injuries. Unpaid wages crying to the heavens for repayment. (DL and Takeshi address this from a different angle. Are we to take the karmic readjustment business to be a sector which could include all forms of social safety net, maybe?))  


One more little look, comparing the French Revolution with the 60s.There was a widespread peace movement in the 60s, a whole bunch of goodness and revulsion against violence. Like a warm front meeting a cold front, this met up with imperialism and militarism and the results were many and varied. There was eventually a broad consensus that the profit motive and the family were the way to go, or at least this meme was broadcast and widely promulgated, energetically and unceasingly...and by golly it isn't the worst meme ever, is it? Later in Vineland Vond's readjustment camps became unnecessary as young folks voluntarily cut their hair and sought employment, responding to the Marquis de Sod's call to discipline.

 Anyroad, by co-opting the Marseillaise to use as a jingle for a lawn company, Pynchon shows how and why things went differently for the US in 196x than the truly miserable outcome for France, where revolution ran its course to be supplanted by emperor Napoleon and a worldwide program of conquest which included the colonization of Vietnam and the US involvement there when the French finally left it. 

 Also Haiti was ravaged by Napoleon, crushing reparations were paid even into the 1900s, and when Aristide requested they be returned, France heartlessly denied them and continues to do so, even in this century. Oh the humanity!

 The anthem that stirred them was to arms, to follow a leader into martial activities...whereas the Marquis De Sod tastefully rouses homeowners to "get their lands in order." On a national scale, this impulse is safer and healthier, isn't it?

Perhaps not perfect but not too shabby, imho.

 Achieving the homeowner status to which the Marquis's appealing involves submitting to an employer (rather than enlisting in a legion) accepting with good humor the bit of sadism implied in work, (taking the bit between one's teeth, as it were) or, for those at a position with more potential energy, accepting the not completely dissimilar discipline of becoming an employer, which is our recourse from injustice and a feasible step toward perfecting the world.

 It's only one of the literally, yes literally myriads of Pynchonian insights in _Vineland_ and elsewhere and it was my delight to expatiate briefly thereon.
 Thank you and may you treasure and savor a happy new year! Should auld acquaintance be forgot?(there was that cup of kindness) "reach out your hand if your cup be empty,If your cup is full, may it be again"--good old Grateful Dead  
 Resolution in 2018 be cool but care. Hope for 2018, a new Pynchon novel, inter alia (Primus inter pares or something)
 Over The Hills
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Robert Hunter


That's not the sound of your regular number
I know that sound like I know my own name
Say, Mr. Matches, that's a pretty nice tune
I wonder if you'd play that tune again?

It went: Over the Hills and Far Away
A guitar player at the break of day
Playing Oh My Lady and Oh My Soul
Playing Whoa-oh and Over She Go
And I don't want to lose that feeling
I don't want to lose that feeling
I don't want that feeling to go - no

That's not the sound of your regular drummer
One drive to the nail and four to the bar
I know that beat like I know my own heart
What were you thinking when you played that part?

It went: Over the Hills and Far Away
A drummer drumming at the break of day
Playing Oh My Lady and Oh My Soul
Playing Whoa-oh and Over She Go
And I don't want that feeling to go
I don't want that feeling to go - no

That's not the voice of your regular singer
Been hearing that song since I was born
When I was a baby rocked in my cradle
Bright and early in the frosty morn

It gives me pleasure, it gives me peace
Gives me something to remember when seasons fly by
I can't recall the words or the tune so clearly
But I know when I hear it and I love it dearly

That's not the sound of your regular number
I know that sound like I know my own name
Say, Mr. Matches, that's a pretty nice tune
I wonder if you'd play that tune again?

It went: Over the Hills and Far Away
A guitar player at the break of day
Playing Oh My Lady and Oh My Soul
Playing Whoa-oh and Over She Go
And I don't want that feeling to go
I don't want that feeling to go
I don't want to lose that feeling
I don't want to lose that feeling
I don't want that feeling to go - no  
____________________________________________________________
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