Blodwen and Millard save the republic

Mark Kohut mark.kohut at gmail.com
Mon Jan 1 05:59:00 CST 2018


Marquis de Sod tells me lots of grass grows under his name. Which your riff
on de Sade shows.

On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 4:21 AM, peterthooper at juno.com <peterthooper at juno.com
> wrote:

> 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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