Reader's Guide to Vineland



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signs ("Free Tom Mooney") were carried by thousands of lefties during the twenties and thirties. In 1915, 

Mooney was the foremost labor radical in San Francisco. He was solidly against the United Railroads of San 

Francisco, which in turn put its money behind Charles M. Fickert, a leader of the "crush the unions" drive. On 

July 22, 1916, Fickert framed Mooney by staging a homicidal dynamite blast on Market Street. Ten people were 

killed; Mooney (and Warren K. Billings) were held in prison until 1939, when they were pardoned by 

California Governor Culbert L. Olson. 



p. 77 "Campaign for Culber Olson in '38"    Another typo/misspelling. This must be the Culbert L. Olson 

who eventually freed Tom Mooney.  



p. 78 "Oh, the joints were jumping those nights..."   Pynchon does a great job of capturing the wartime 

atmosphere in San Francisco, with a cute ref to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. 



p. 78 "Wild and rowdy like the Clark Gable movie."   That's San Francisco [1936].  

p. 79 "Chinese references in those days [were] code for opium products"   A fascinating (and typically 

Pynchonian) inside "period" tip. 



p. 79 "ork"   Pynchon uses this obscure bit of (presumably) forties slang,  meaning orchestra, at least twice 

in  Vineland. We've never run across it in any of our period reading or listening. However, in Kovacsland, a 

biography of Ernie Kovacs, author Diana Rico makes reference to Kovacs' habit of "creating a special 

language" in a column he wrote, briefly, for a newspaper called the Trentonian. ["Special language" = 

"idiolalia." See note on p. 263. A paranoid would connect these, but we'll pass.] To illustrate her point, she 

notes Kovacs' habitual use of the word "orks," meaning orchestras. Now Kovacs was writing in 1946, so there 

are two intriguing possibilities: 1) Rico is wrong; Kovacs didn't make up the term, he picked it up from hearing 

it used, thereby verifying Pynchon's correct use of it. Or, 2), Kovacs did invent the term, and Pynchon picked it 

up from reading one of Kovacs' columns.  

p. 79 "telegraphing the chord changes"    Only musicians think about these details; another hint of 

Pynchon's musical predilections. 



p. 79 "gave her the O-O"    O-O = the once-over. But the way it looks on the page also suggests "the big 

eye," or in this case, two of 'em. 



p. 80 "long-hull Sumner-class destroyer"    More Navy stuff, unlikely to be found in newspaper archives.  

p. 80, 81 "Friends of Hub's had sold out friends of Sasha's..."   Extremely accurate rendition of left-wing 

bitterness, with nice joke ("nobody talks") to cap it. 



p. 82 "You want to see a hot set?....see that? Shook all over? That's scab carpentry..."   Presumably the 

paint on the scab construction hadn't dried yet either. This is great, authentic-sounding slang. 



p. 82 "loud birds...were attracted..."    Not even birds can resist TV; it charms them out of the trees.  

p. 83 "Believing that the rays coming out of the TV screen would act as a broom to sweep the room 

clear of all spirits, Frenesi now popped the Tube on and checked the listings."      So  we  learn  two  more 

notable Tube Facts: TV has supernatural powers; and it sweeps out good, as well as bad spirits. 



p. 83 "Let the grim feminist rave..."    Frenesi's fetish for men-in-uniform manifests itself in masturbatory 

fantasies featuring Ponch and Jon from CHiPs. This scene marks the return from Frenesi's flashback to her 

parent's history and her childhood. 

p. 83 "Sasha believed her daughter had 'gotten' this uniform fetish from her...a helpless turn toward 

images of authority..."   Authority = God = election to Calvinist salvation. Pynchon's attitude towards 

authority in this context is pretty well spelled out in DL's angry-ironic monologue on schoolrooms (p.128): 

"...better just hand [your body] over to those who are qualified, doctors, and lab technicians and by extension 

coaches, employers, boys with hardons, so forth..." 



p. 85 "a lot of people we know -- they ain't on the computer anymore. Just -- gone."   Paranoia strikes 

deep, except this time it isn't just paranoia. This echoes the passengers vanishing from the Kahuna Airlines 

plane in Chapter 5, and foreshadows the "handful of persons unaccounted for" (p. 248) after Trasero County 

events to be revealed presently. It seems that Vond (or certain "unrelenting forces" that may, or may not, be 

connected with Vond) have been "disappearing" people for some time.  

p. 87 "...a kind of alien-invasion game in which Flash launched complaints of different sizes at 

different speeds and Frenesi tried to deflect or neutralize them..."   A marital argument is described with a 

Space Invaders simile. Very telling, very clever. 



p. 90 "Jasonic"   From Jason, the main character in Friday the 13th [1980]. 


p. 90 "alphanumeric" = letters and numbers, like a typewriter keyboard. 

p. 90 "It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character..."   Computer reference: 

eight bits, each of which can be either a one or a zero, make one byte (or alphanumeric character).  



p. 90 "We are digits in God's computer...and the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, 

is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies 

beneath the notice of the hacker we call God."   The life-and-death-as-ones-and-zeros conceit is concluded. 

A beautiful, elegant, unbearable idea. The phrase "toil and blood" may be a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan (the 

same words occur in "Shelter From the Storm"), or it may simply be a reference to Winston Churchill's famous 

WW II speech. 

 

 

CHAPTER 7 



 

The Italian wedding, and an archetypal musician's nightmare about the worst possible gig -- complete with 

heavies who'll kill you for not playing what you don't know how to play. This is primarily broad comedy until 

Prairie, in front of the bathroom mirror, meets Frenesi's old pal DL. DL turns out (somewhat coincidentally) to 

be Takeshi's partner -- only it's not coincidental at all. In paranoia (the base state of Pynchon's fiction--as well as 

Dickens'), people and events are always linked. The whole world is a connected web, and the hero is the only 

one who doesn't know it. It's either God's work (Dickens) or that of a sinister agency (Pynchon). It's also the 

secret integration that makes all novels (but particularly Pynchon's) both possible and necessary.,  

In any case, DL has some kind of electronic device that senses the presence of Takeshi's business card (a 

slightly awkward and unbelievable detail here). The chapter concludes with DL singing "Floozy With an Uzi," a 

perfect intro for her character, as well as a marvelous goof. 

  

p. 92 "The Wayvone estate..."    The description sets Wayvone's digs in Woodside or Atherton -- pricey 

suburbs down the peninsula from San Francisco.  

p. 93 "Gelsomina, the baby"    Also the childlike heroine of Fellini's La Strada [1954].  

p. 94 "Testa puntita" = pointed head. 

p. 95 "Lugares Altos" = high places. 

p. 95 "Mr. Wayvone's compliments"    Two-Ton's deadpan delivery, and instructions to the band, 

constitute perfect movie-Mafia schtick. 



p. 97 "Italian Wedding Fake Book by Deleuze & Guattari"   If this isn't real, it oughtta be. 

p. 99 "Suddenly she saw another reflection, one that might've been there for a while"   We'll soon 

learn about DL's prowess at the ninja arts, including the one of not being seen unless she wants to be. 



p. 99 "...wearing a green party dress...athletic, even warriorlike..."   DL is described very much like 

Artemis/Diana, the Greek/Roman goddess and virgin huntress -- whose color is green.  



p. 100 "Darryl Louise Chastain"    Even DL's last name, Chastain, is suggestive of chastity (as you'd 

expect in a virgin huntress), but "stained," imperfect. She's a flawed avatar, a preterite goddess.  



p. 100 "Dumbo with that feather..."    The reference is to Disney's animated cartoon feature, Dumbo 

[1941]. The feather was a security symbol that gave the little elephant the confidence to fly when he clutched it 

in his trunk. (It is rumored that Dumbo is one of Pynchon's favorite movies.) 

p. 101 "whatever story DL told...could never be the story she knew."   The first ominous hint of the 

events in Trasero County. 



p. 101 "But DL only smiled back..."        That  is,  DL  doesn't tell Prairie that she's too young to be so 

paranoid. In other words, paranoia is the correct response.  



p. 102 "Shondra and the kids look wonderful"   The first (easy to miss) inkling of a connection between 

DL and Ralph Sr. 



p. 103 "You think I'm one of those kids on Phil Donahue..."   That is, The Phil Donahue Show. Prairie 

(like most of America) is quick to define herself via a TV show.  



p. 105 DL's car has features "not on the standard model."   More Pynchonian mysterioso. And it's a 

black Trans-Am! A b-a-a-d car, and the perfect ride for a would-be ninja.  

p. 106 They depart "to the stately Neo-glasspack wind chorale, combustion shaped to music, varying 


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