Reader's Guide to Vineland

CHAPTER 1
Zoyd prepares to jump through a window, but the Log Jam bar, where he plans to do the deed, has gone
upscale -- and seems to have a surprisingly large percentage of gay lumberjacks in it. Zoyd goes instead to the
Cucumber Lounge, where the Media waits to record his jump through the window (which this year is a
"breakaway" stunt window made of sugar). In the process we meet Ralph Wayvone Jr. and Hector Zuniga.
p. 3 "Zoyd" Rhymes with void, shares Z with Zuniga.
p. 3 "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 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.
p. 3 "country music was playing out of somebody's truck radio" Good Mendocino atmosphere
throughout; clearly, Pynchon has been there.
p. 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.
p. 6 "orientational vibes" Great satire on gay men who like to dress like lumberjacks, possibly inspired
by the Monty Python song, "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK."
p. 7 "Six Rivers Conference" To the south of the eerie and mysterious Seventh River? (See p. 49.)
p. 7 "nacreous pretty saw" Referring to the mother-of-pearl grips on "Cheryl's" chainsaw.
p. 7 "hotshot PI lawyers" PI = Normally short for personal injury, but here perhaps purchase of
information, as noted on p. 24.
p. 7 "George Lucas and all his crew" The forest sequences of the Star Wars sequel were shot in the
area.
p. 9 "cop vehicles...playing the 'Jeopardy' theme on their sirens." The first of many TV show / theme
song references.
p. 9, 10 "unrelenting...bickering...[caused by] unquiet ghosts" A pre-hint of the Thanatoids?
p. 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.
p. 10 "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.
p. 10 "Wayvone" = a play on "rave on?" He's also a remittance man, someone who gets paid a small but
regular amount of money to stay 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).
p. 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).
CHAPTER 2
Zoyd goes home. We meet his 14-year-old daughter Prairie. There's history/exposition on Zoyd's window
stunt. We meet Prairie's boyfriend, punk rocker Isaiah Two Four. Isaiah proposes a "violence theme park." Zoyd
sets up Isaiah's band, the Vomitones, with a gig at the (presumably) Mafia wedding of Ralph Wayvone Jr.'s
family.