Reader's Guide to Vineland

see, Vond later approaches Prairie from the same direction. 

p. 277 "like a skier on an unfamiliar black-diamond slope"   The black diamond symbol marks an 

"expert" (i.e., very difficult) skiing slope. Hearing of Frenesi's escape from PREP, Brock freaks out, feeling 

himself to be in a dangerous situation beyond his abilities.  

p. 278 "...hoping to find a girl to project Frenesi's ghost onto."   Vond is about to repeat the mistake 

make by Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo [1958]. 

p. 282 "Frenesi had been making it as easy for him as she could..."   She really does love Vond, it 

seems. Or his uniform, his sadistic charms, his authority. 

p. 282 "sky-blue Rayleigh scattering"    Typical Pynchon science shot. The frequency-differential 

scattering of light waves, as described by Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919), is indeed what makes the sky appear 

blue. 

p. 283 "A&R" = Artists and Repertoire. In record companies, the "Head of A&R" (originally "A&R man") 

decides which artists to sign, and what they'll record. A powerful position. 

p. 283 "Department...head!"    A very old joke indeed. As noted previously, "head" is sixties doper slang 

for a user of (usually soft) drugs. 

p. 284 "the eye-catching production values of LSD"   Nice line, but to set it up Pynchon has to run these 

Mellow acid-head variations. It's a pretty idealized trip. Pynchon does Dr. Tim. 

p. 285 "Leonard the midwife."    Leonard? And in a Nehru shirt, no less! See also The Crying of Lot 49, 

paperback edition, p. 128: "Change your name to Miles, Dean, Serge, and/or Leonard, baby..." 

p. 285 The look from infant Prairie to papa Zoyd that would, more than once in years to come, "help 

him through those times when the Klingons are closing, and the helm won't answer, and the warp 

engine's out of control."   Very nice use of the Star Trek metaphor to lock in the time frame during which 

Zoyd needed help, and also a powerful image to describe times of distress. See also the adventures of Cutter 

John, the wheelchair-bound character in the "Bloom County" comic strip, who's famed for Star Trek fantasies 

enjoyed with Opus, Bill the Cat and other animal stars of that strip. 

p. 286 "...Frenesi was depressed"    Frenesi's deep sadness upon having her baby is so common it even has 

a name: "post-partum depression." 

p. 286 "Lobster Trick Movie"    Well, this might be Annie Hall, but basically we're totally lost. Can it be 

some obscure Navy reference? A helmsman putting in his "trick" at the wheel? Or is this some kinda SoCal TV 

thing? 

p. 287 "the sleek raptors that decorate fascist architecture"   Like the eagles of the 3rd Reich, and the 

USA. 

p. 287 "She understood, from all the silver and light she'd known and been, brought back to the 

world like silver recalled grain by grain from the Invisible to form images of what then went on to grow 

old, go away, get broken or contaminated."   A remarkable extended metaphor about film (in which blacks 

are created by grains of silver appearing "from the Invisible" during development) as a sort of liberation from 

time. 

p. 287 "photon projectors" = arc lights. 

p. 288-290 Hubbell's tale: Sad, accurate, believable story pinned down by Pynchon's usual cascade of 

obscure, effective historic details and dialogue.  

p. 289 "...drop a Brute 450 on you just as easy as a tree..."   The Brute is a heavy carbon-arc studio light 

made by the Mole-Richardson company. Obviously, Hub is tired of hearing about the heroic but schlemiel-like 

main event in the life of Sasha's dad. (see p. 75). 

p. 289 "misoneism" = hatred of what is new. 

p. 290 "Happy-go-lucky kids..."    A sudden explosion of bebop tunes and wartime details powers this 

brief but effective time-machine day-trip.  

p. 290 "...Hub with a uke...[both] singing bop tunes..."   In Pynchon's universe, musicians are always 

good guys. 

p. 291 "pocket pool" = playing with your balls through a hole in your pants pocket.  

p. 291 "...the Brute was first coming in. Jesus, all those amps..."   So it turns out that Hub, Frenesi's 

father, "went over" too, and (like his daughter) for the love of a Brute. This Brute, however, is a big Mole-

Richardson arc light, not a lawman. 

---

p. 291 "sold off my only real fortune -- my precious anger -- for a lot of god-damn shadows."   

Meaning film, of course, but remember too that in the binary scheme of life light and shadows are ones and 

zeros. 

p. 291-2 "Young Gaffer...I'd've called you my Best Girl."   A play on "Best Boy," a film term referring 

to the gaffer's first assistant. 

p. 292 "...this turn against Sasha her once-connected self would remain a puzzle she would never 

quite solve..."    It's not that mysterious. Vond has forced a wedge (his erect penis, perhaps; see following note) 

between Frenesi and her mother, her leftism, her own female identity. It's a form of expulsion from Paradise, 

and ties in very neatly with Sister Rochelle's feminist Eden fable on p. 166. 

p. 292-3 "joystick"    Vond reenters Frenesi's life, and the chapter ends with a powerful (if appropriately 

cheerless and depressing) simile in which Vond's erect penis is the joystick of the video game in a forbidden 

arcade that never shuts. 

 

  

CHAPTER 14 

 

Even after he abducts Frenesi, Vond maintains an unhealthy interest in baby Prairie (who has stayed with 

Zoyd). A year after Frenesi leaves Zoyd, Zuniga (acting at Vond's direction) sets up Zoyd for a drug bust by 

planting a gigantic brick of pressed marijuana at Zoyd's pad. Sasha shows up and takes Prairie. Perhaps at 

Zuniga's request; if true, this is a kind gesture on Zuniga's part. 

Zoyd (who really loves Prairie) is whopped into jail, where Vond taunts him cruelly. After threatening Zoyd 

with life in prison, Vond offers him a deal. Apparently Vond wants to make sure that Frenesi is never tempted 

to leave him (Vond) by her love for Prairie, so he offers Zoyd his freedom if he agrees to take the kid and 

disappear. Zoyd agrees, but Vond has him beaten anyway. Zoyd goes to Sasha's, and picks up Prairie. But first 

he tells Sasha about some other stuff Vond has insisted on: Zoyd must perform an annual act of public craziness 

so Vond will always know where he is. [Of course, this contradicts the idea of "disappearing"; if the act of 

public craziness lets Vond track Zoyd and Prairie's location, it also negates the whole point of hiding Prairie 

from Frenesi, who can watch TV news too. Oh well...] Sasha suggests that Zoyd "disappear" in Vineland, where 

she has family.  

Zoyd thumbs his way north. He stops briefly at a refugee commune in the Sacramento Delta, but when that 

proves too noisy and uptight he heads for San Francisco. There, he looks up Wendell "Mucho" Maas, a 

character from The Crying of Lot 49. Mucho is temporarily elsewhere, but Zoyd crashes at his palatial (but 

drug-free) rock 'n' roll pad for a few days, meeting Mucho's blonde girlfriend Trillium and her friends. Zoyd 

sings Prairie a silly lullaby, entitled "Lawrence of Arabia."  

There's a brief flashback to Zoyd's meeting with Mucho (then an LA record producer) in 1967. In those 

days, Mucho was a major "head" -- but gave up drugs after a traumatic meeting with Dr. Hugo Splanchnick, an 

anti-cocaine nose doctor (or "snoot croaker," as Pynchon puts it). Back in the present Mucho reappears, and 

reminisces with Zoyd about how Zuniga screwed up the Corvairs' shot at a recording career (a brief flashback 

here). The two share a sad, accurate appraisal of the scary way things are changing, and a grim (also accurate) 

view of the future.  

Zoyd and Prairie continue on their trip north to Vineland. They run into old pal Van Meter in Eureka, and 

together they drive "back" (presumably south) to Vineland. There's a brief historical/geographical essay on 

Vineland. Zoyd discovers that he likes the region, and finds a place to live in a trailer on a piece of land off 

Vegetable Road. He does odd jobs, hangs out happily with the other ex- (and not-so-ex) hippies, and even 

makes contact with Sasha's (and Frenesi's) left-wing family members -- who take him in despite their mistrust 

of his non-union lifestyle. Zoyd's love for Prairie deepens. He relaxes, coming to believe he's finally free of 

Brock Vond. 

  

p. 294 "But when he found out about Prairie...something else, something from his nightmares of 

forced procreation, must have taken over, because later, in what could only be crippled judgment, Brock 

was to turn and go after the baby and, noticing Zoyd in the way, arrange for his removal too."        This 

explains Vond's attack on Zoyd in Chapter 4 -- but note how "crippled judgment" buys off Pynchon's lack of 

---