Any suggestions to make this a better quick plot summary for VL?

[rich]

D--

I think Vineland holds up better than IV and BE, if comparing the 'minor'
works, though I don't really have any compulsion to ever read these 3
again. Vineland resonated with me once, but not anymore.

Folks were disappointed I guess to hear back from the man after 17 yrs with
Vineland. but we know with M&D and AtD he caught up. and now it's been 15
years since a 'major' work as I see it.

But I haven't been enamored of much current fiction anyways, except for
Marlon James

rich

On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 5:11 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I really don’t like Vineland.  I tried to give it an honest second shot
> many years ago here in a group read, and I concluded that it is my very
> least favorite Pynchon novel, for many reasons.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 10:19 PM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Just trying to give a sense of Vineland to a hypothetical friend or two
> > with intelligence but minimal to no literary knowledge, wanting to hit
> the
> > high points
> >
> >
> >
> > 1) even among Pynchon fans it gets disrespected - I never understand why
> > (-;
> >
> > 2) it starts out in 1984 with the forces of marijuana Prohibition closing
> > in on pothead Zoyd Wheeler, musician and welfare recipient but also
> odd-job
> > doer and gypsy roofer…anything to support his daughter and keep building
> on
> > to his home, which started as a small trailer but now has numerous
> > additions
> >
> > 2a) Zoyd has made a deal with the villainous Brock Vond of the DEA to let
> > him keep his daughter Prairie, but he has to do something crazy every
> year
> > to keep collecting SSI so they know where he is, otherwise they will get
> > Child Social Services to take away his daughter.
> >
> >
> > 3) it flashes back and forth between 1968 and 1984
> >
> > 4) magical realism - a South American literary current, exemplified by
> > Gabriel Garcia Marquez among others, which mixes a bit of fantasy into an
> > otherwise straightforward story
> >
> > Vineland has some magical realist elements:
> >
> >  - the Puncutron Machine, which automates acupuncture and is used in
> Ninja
> > nunnery, The Sisterhood of Kunoichi Attentives, to cure the character
> > Takeshi of a kung fu deathblow inflicted upon him in error by DL, a lady
> > Ninja. Her penance is to be his bodyguard for a year and a day. They
> > eventually fall in love.
> >
> > - business cards that detect the presence of other business cards from
> the
> > same character (Takeshi) and play a little tune to alert the bearers
> >
> > - Takeshi’s business is Karmic Adjustment & he works with “Thanatoids”
> who
> > are probably ghosts, to reconcile them to the ills they suffered in life
> >
> > - a UFO tries to take over a jet flying to Hawaii, but the main
> character,
> > Zoyd, drives them off by playing a B flat on his keyboard. Among the
> > passengers is Takeshi, who gratefully gives Zoyd one of his musical
> > business cards
> >
> > - at one point, there’s a TransAm with a mirror finish, so it’s
> effectively
> > invisible
> >
> >
> > 5) Star-crossed lovers - Zoyd, a musician, marries radical photographer
> > Frenesi back in the 60s, but Frenesi is seduced violently by villainous
> DEA
> > agent Brock Vond and persuaded to betray her friends.
> > Even after she does his bidding, Vond jails Frenesi, abusing the power of
> > the State, as is his won’t, in order to detain her and sedate her with
> > psych meds.
> >
> > Frenesi escapes with the help of DL (the lady Ninja.)
> >
> > But Vond catches up with Frenesi - who can’t resist him, which is perhaps
> > due to a touch of battered woman syndrome, although according to this
> book,
> > at this juncture, villain Vond only uses vigorous sex and verbal abuse
> > which are enough to keep her subservient - and he enlists her in his
> > informer program, keeping her far away from her husband Zoyd and their
> baby
> > daughter Prairie. Zoyd has to be a single parent.
> >
> > 6) student rebellion - details of how in 1968, students briefly took over
> > the (fictional) College of the Surf in SoCal, and called it the People’s
> > Republic of Rock and Roll (PR3)
> >
> > 7)  Prairie (teenage daughter of Frenesi and Zoyd) leaves home just as
> the
> > DEA is about to seize the house where Zoyd raised her. As she leaves, he
> > gives her Takeshi’s business card to hold onto.
> >
> > At first, Prairie travels in the company of her boyfriend Isaiah 2:4
> > (hippie parents named him after Bible verse about beating swords into
> > plowshare) and his band, “Billy Barf and the Vomitones”
> >
> > — the band has a gig at a Mafia wedding.
> > At the wedding, Prairie visits the restroom, where the old Takeshi
> business
> > card, that her dad Zoyd gave her, lets out a chime indicating the
> > proximity of another such business card - and she meets DL.
> >
> > They spend some time at the Ninja Nunnery.
> >
> > DL introduces Prairie to old radical friends of her mother’s, Zippi and
> > Ditzah Pisk, who give her access to computer files about the student
> > takeover of the College of the Surf, the short-lived People’s Republic of
> > Rock and Roll, or “PR3”, and how her mom betrayed Weed Atman, one of the
> > leaders of the PR3.
> >
> > Brock Vond’s DEA agents burn down Zippi and Ditzah Pisk’s house.
> >
> > The book winds up with Zoyd, Prairie, and Frenesi all going to a big
> family
> > reunion of several generations of radical unionists and lefties,
> socialists
> > of all stripes.
> >
> > Frenesi has remarried, not to DEA agent Brock Vond, but to Flash, one of
> > her fellow informers.
> >
> > Zoyd accepts the situation, and has a beer with her new husband.
> >
> > Prairie goes off to unroll her sleeping bag in a secluded part of the
> > woods. Villainous DEA agent Brock Vond tries to kidnap her, but just as
> > he’s about to whisk her away, the Reagan Administration cuts his funding
> > and he tries to drive away but ends up in the land of the Thanatoids.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>