Reader's Guide to Vineland

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