Difference between revisions of "Chapter 1"

Revision as of 21:41, 22 June 2008

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

Page numbers refer to editions with 385 pages, where the story begins on page 3. Not sure if there are other editions with variant pagination. Please let us know otherwise.

Page 3

Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila)

This opening sentence subtly prepares the reader for the themes in Vineland. The pacific experience of drifting awake [and Zoyd would definitely be drifting!] in filtered sunlight one summer morning is darkened by foreshadowings of threats ... specifically, Federal Prosecutor Brock Vond who is referred to throughout as a "creep" and a "megacreep," notably on pp. 108, 141 and 189; and those "squadrons of blue jays stomping around..." will morph into squadrons of "private vigilantes" in blue planes, on p. 221. And, natch, there's that ominous Orwellian year of 1984. Of course, the reference to a "vine" in the novel's opening sentence, even if it's creeping, is appropo. Holy prolepsis!

"Zoyd Wheeler"
Rhymes with void, shares Z with Zuniga. Zoyd's last name perhaps references Wheeler Hall at University of California at Berkeley, at the epicenter of student unrest in the 60s.

"mental disability check"
This instantly identifies Zoyd as a sixties character with a sixties scam. In the late sixties, Bay Area actor/writer Peter Coyote (b. 1941) wrote and performed a then-popular song called "ATD" celebrating the coolness of getting onto ATD (Aid to the Totally Disabled) for feigned mental problems to avoid having to work at some evil-collaborative (i.e., straight) job. The trick, of course, was convincing your caseworker that you were a nut. Zoyd's annual window-dive is a comic version of a now-classic ritual-scam turned into a media circus (as are most remains of the sixties). Given the importance of the Tube in Vineland, it's no accident that what was originally a private act of financial desperation has become a filler on TV news (complete with a fake window). Of course, as it turns out, this particular scam is not Zoyd's idea.

Prairie
Zoyd's daughter would likely be Prairie Wheeler, thus her name might connect to the Tibetan Prayer Wheel, a mechanical device used as an equivalent to the recitation of a mantra. The prayer wheel consists of a hollow metal cylinder, often beautifully embossed, mounted on a rod and containing a consecrated paper bearing a mantra. Each turn of the wheel by hand is considered equivalent to orally reciting the prayer. Variants to the handheld prayer wheel are large cylinders that can be set in motion by hand or attached to windmills or waterwheels and thus kept in continuous motion.

"country music was playing out of somebody's truck radio"
Good Mendocino atmosphere throughout; clearly, Pynchon has been there.

"Count Chocula"
An actual cereal that made its first appears in 1971, along with another monster-themed offering from General Mills, Franken Berry. Wikipedia

"Froot Loops again"
Froot Loops is a brand of breakfast cereal introduced by Kellogg's in 1963.

"Nestle's Quik"
A chocolate flavoring for milk mix that was developed in the U.S. by 1948. It was introduced in Europe in 1950 as Nesquik and that name was adapted in the U.S. in 1999.

"Cucumber Lounge"
A phallic name, for sure.

"the Log Jam in Del Norte"
And another phallic club name.

Page 4

"elegant little...chain saw, about the size of a Mini-Mac"
Mini-Mac = the Mac-10 machine pistol of US make. Zoyd's lady-like chainsaw goes well with his drag costume, and the effeminate clientele (drinking "kiwi mimosas.") It also makes a nice almost-rhyme with Sheriff Willis Chunko's gold-handled chainsaw on page 373.

Page 6

"orientational vibes"
Great satire on gay men who like to dress like lumberjacks, possibly inspired by the Monty Python song, "I am a Lumberjack and I'm OK".

Page 7

"Six Rivers Conference"
To the south of the eerie and mysterious Seventh River? (See p. 49.)

"nacreous pretty saw"
Referring to the mother-of-pearl grips on "Cheryl's" chainsaw.

"hotshot PI lawyers"
PI = Normally short for personal injury, but here perhaps purchase of information, as noted on p. 24.

"George Lucas and all his crew"
The forest sequences of the Star Wars sequel were shot in the area.

Page 9

"cop vehicles...playing the 'Jeopardy' theme on their sirens."
The first of many TV show / theme song references.

"unrelenting...bickering...[caused by] unquiet ghosts"
A pre-hint of the Thanatoids?

Page 10

"one of those gotta-shit throbs of fear."
An apt description, if you've ever felt it. Pynchon seems big on these visceral fear reactions; see also p. 45 ("intestinal pangs of fear"), p. 116 ("stone bowelflash"), p. 207 ("a throb of fear went right up his asshole"), p. 299 ("rectal spasms of fear,") and elsewhere.

"Dream on, Zoyd."
Pynchon seems to be using the authorial voice with slightly higher profile than previously, speaking directly to characters (and readers) with comments like this.

"Wayvone"
The name may be a play on "rave on," but it's also been suggested that it might derive from huevon, a Spanish word meaning egg, but also referring to a testicle -- hence someone with "big balls." (Pynchon did live in Mexico for a while...) In any case, Wayvone is also a remittance man, someone who gets paid a small but regular amount of money to stay out of trouble in some far-away place. Pynchon seems fond of the type -- there are several in V. and Gravity's Rainbow, and the latter even has a remittance horse (named Snake).

Page 12

"technical virgin"
Meaning Zoyd has more-or-less resisted Zuniga's attempt to "turn" him into an informer/betrayer. The sexual metaphor prefigures many references to Frenesi's pussy (which she blames for driving her far beyond this stage).