Vineland

Vineland, the central location, a fictional town in California, Anderson Valley, is possibly based on Bunville. Vineland may be a pun for Hollywood , a reference to the first Viking settlement in North America , or a hint of Andrei Winlander, the character of Vladimir Nabokov from Ada . According to another opinion, the name is borrowed from the city of Vineland in New Jersey, or "Vinland the Good" from the poem of Frank O`Hara. In any case, the most obvious association with the name refers to the California Wine Country.

The action takes place in 1984, in California, in the year of the re-election of Ronald Reagan. After a scene in which ex-hippie Zoid Wheeler is thrown out the window, which he is forced to do regularly to receive checks for mental health, the action moves to agent Brock Vond, who forces Zoid and his 14-year-old daughter Preiri to move out of the house. They are hiding from Brock and Hector Zunig (a federal from the drug department whom Zoid suspects of conspiring with Brock) with an old friend of Zoid, who tells Perry about the reasons for Brock's actions.

This is closely related to the story of Francesi Gates, the mother of Prairie, whom she never met. In the 60s, the height of the hippie era, the fictional College of the Surf proclaimed itself to be independent from the United States, populated by hippies and marijuana smokers, calling itself People's Republic of Rock and Roll (PR³). Brock Vond, who works for DEA, was assigned to discredit PR³ and recruit Francesi as accomplices. She was a member of 24fps, a team of activist filmmakers (other members of which tell Preiri a story in the present who searched and documented evidence of fascist actions against hippie freedom and ideals. Francesi was uncontrollably drawn to Brock, and as a result she becomes a double agent, and by the fact is responsible for the murder of the leader of PR³, Vid Atman (a professor of mathematics, whose personality by chance became a cult).

Her betrayal forced her to run and live under Brock's protection to this day. Now she was missing. 24fps members, Brock Wond, and Hector Zunig are looking for her for various reasons. The idea of ​​a book on the ubiquity of television comes to mind when Hector, a television addict who is not really working with Brock, finds the means to create a movie that tells the whole truth about the 60s confrontation with Francesi Gates in the title role, which would allow her star and secure against persecution. The 24fps team finds Frenesi and achieves the goal of introducing her to her own daughter, Preiri, which completes the reunion of the huge Frenesi family. The Atman view is also present on it, already as one of the thanatoids, people who "seem to be dead, but in a different way."

Brock, almost omnipotent at the expense of DEA funds, finds Prairie using a surveillance helicopter and tries to grab her to get to Francesi, but while he hovering over it on a rope ladder, the government drastically cuts funding due to the loss of interest in financing the war with drugs, and his pilot flies away. He later tries to reach Prairie and Francesi again, but eventually finds himself on a country road where he is finished off by vengeful mechanics familiar with 24fps. Family reunion allows everyone to tie all the ends together, and the book ends with Prairie's view of the future unconnected by the burden of the past.

In the novel, Pincher’s handwriting is clearly traced. Starting with the cameo by Macho Maas (from Lot 49 Shouts ), ending with a strange episode hinting at Godzilla . The novel is also teeming with female ninja, astrologers, television addiction smokers, musical interludes (including a song from Smurfs) and, of course, Star Trek metaphors.

• ThomasPynchon.com
• Vineland wiki