If Deleuze was right in seeing writers as physicians of culture, symptomatologists exposing the sickness of society, therapists proposing remedies of variable plausibility, Thomas Pynchon's Vineland is a treatise on Hematology: Vineland is about what ails the USA in its blood.
The book alternates its brilliant jokes -and almost everyone in the book is one- between the 60s and the 80s as Prairie leaves her ridiculous hippie dad, Zoyd (reduced to performing annual rituals of cross-dressing violence on TV to collect a disability check), in the search for everybody's object of desire: her mom Frenesi Gates.
On the trail of Frenesi's videodrome ghost we learn of the rise and fall of PR3, the People's Republic of Rock and Roll, a secessionist campus in Trasero county, California, of her involvement with the radical film crew 24fps and her calamitous relationship with bad guy Brock Vond, the fascist-par-excellence whose seductive powers are at the core of the cloudburst.
The mechanics of the book, and thus Pynchon's diagnosis, can be divided broadly in two: first is the mirror house, deformed reflections. Everything returns as a twisted version of its former self, including the actual dead (in the form of Thanatoids, undead victims of karmic faults who go around interacting with the living, watching TV, etc.). Family, individuals, pop culture, they all return in contorted, often amusing ways e.g., "Say, Jim!," an inverted Star Trek with an all black cast with the exception of a freckled redhead communications officer, lieutenant O'hara. At the end, not even fascism is what it used to be, as young would-be-rebels no longer need camps for "reeducation."
The second mechanism is sexual seduction. Fascism advances by means of corrupting desire embedded invariably in the character's DNA.
Beyond this, I will say no more about the book itself, don't want to spoil it for anyone; for praise of the books' literary merits, formal quirks, embedded song lyrics and puns (such as the japanese conglomerate Tokkata & Fuji) I'll refer you to Salman Rushdie (His New York Times review available here http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-vineland.html). For a thorough analysis of the Cultural Trauma in the book you can take a look at James Berger's lucid essay at The Modern Word (http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/papers_berger.html).
In the reminder of this entry I'll avoid repeating those great reviews in favor of a report from the field. A few years as a resident of California has prepared me to give you first hand information as to the current state of Vineland, the good.
THE ORIGINAL PLAYERS Vineland's children of the sixties, corrupted by the eighties, blindsided by the nineties, obliterated by the oh-ohs, are now effectively part of the living dead.
They gather in places like Cheswick's, a dimly lit box where time passes slowly, without anyone ever jumping through a window. In fact, there are no windows in the place, which suits everyone just fine. The minimum amount of air coming in is enough to keep them going.
Since there are no sits outside, the patrons take dutiful turns going out for smoking, standing right in front of the windowless hole that serves as ventilation. More smoke goes in than if they were sitting inside looking out. It is a formal game of do-as-you-are-told they have learned to play to perfection. In fact, the greatest faux-pas in this place of droopy eyes and daffy stares, sun-burnt wrinkled faces and faded tattoos is to inadvertently carry your drink in your hand as you cross the border between the inside of the box and the smoking area. This could "fuck us all up!" and its ferociously averted.
Obedience is the name of the game, and as long as they can have beer and tequila shots, the original players will keep dying quietly in line, and there's enough IPA and Patron to last everyone another two life sentences inside the place.
PRAIRIES CHILDREN Prairie's children are in their twenties or so and are a jolly bunch. Their life is full of music, but it is not Rock and Roll. In fact, Rolling Stone magazine reports there was not a single rock song in 2010's top 25. What you do hear in Vineland is pop-rap songs like this:
Bedrock
Oh baby, I be stuck to you like glue
Baby, wanna spend it all on you
Baby, my room is the G spot,
call me Mr. Flintstone I can make your bedrock.
G spot, I'll spend it all on you. Right. The mechanics of Vineland are what they always were, the pursuit of sensual pleasures, and screen to watch them. The contract is to work a job five days a week, and in return you can have an epic party every weekend and a facebook account to share it. A zero-sum game as long as you don't hate your job and the party indeed gets you laid.
Epic parties take time, are not always epic, and often take more money than Vinelanders earn. As these frustrations accumulate, the difference between the girl doing the St. Vitus dance on booze and ecstasy and the homeless dude shaking it to the same tune and drugs on Newport ave. starts appearing less accidental. The shared illusion that prompts one resident to applaud another on saturday nights is perturbed by the sight of wrinkles.
The karmic effect of time starts to contaminate the party, but for that too, Vineland has an antidote. And that is where the Flintstones come in..
CHILDREN OF PRAIRIE'S CHILDREN The Flintstones and the rest of the soft-core, infantile coating on sex prefigure the boundaries of the next stage. Thankfully, adulthood remains untouched during the party, because when the party looses its luster, or becomes too expensive, or one looses luster and feels no longer welcome to the party, reverting to childhood is much easier. When the time comes to make children, there's less adulthood to miss.
Kids provide great relief to Vineland, as socially accepted validation of any citizen which requires no particular skill. Be famous or be a parent; a renewed covenant where Prairie's children get to work the job they are tied to without loosing face. That's just the way life is, they'll tell you, this is what it means to grow up. And don't worry, you can still party. In moderation, of course.
BALANCE IS THE KEY In conclusion, thirty years later, all is good in Vineland. There is no revolution nor need for it because life here is truly a continuum. We have fat-free chocolate, and FDA-approved opiates without opium. Music is both sex-filled and kid-safe. The tube and life are identical, no need to escape one with the other. Young and old are closer together, all sharing the same desires and occasional addictions. Those desires taught at ever-tenderer ages to little Vinelanders, who will be even more efficient than their parents at both the party and at keeping the balance by finding meaning in the miracle of another little Vinelander on the way.
And if at any point should suspicion rear its ugly head suggesting we've been duped, the joint that is no longer revolutionary nor prosecuted will be there, and the tube will soothe our worries through one of those great Vineland saints who will sing to us tenderly:
Don't worry
about a thing.
every little thing
is gonna be alright...
Fabio Arciniegas A. San Diego, CA. May 26, 2011
