vineland

[Paul DiFilippo]

Friends and fellow non-Thanatoids,
Just finished a second reading of _Vineland_, ostensibly in 
search of textual support for my earlier contention that "Frenesi"
should be pronounced "Free 'n' easy", but really, in the end,
for sheer pleasure.  Guess what?  Couldn't find a godamn trace
of any such thing!  Guess I hallucinated it four years ago.  Or 
maybe, like the "book of sand", the text has shifted since then.
On page 75, her name is derived from the big band hit, but with
no alternate pronounciation.  So, kill that turkey!
But!!  What I did decide, on this reading, is that two more
authors should be placed in the Pynchon-affiliate camp:
Haruki Murakami and John Crowley.  The former, for his whimsical,
conspiracy-lade, pop-culture romp _A Wild Sheep Chase_ (and 
probably for its two sequels, tho I haven't read them yet), and the
latter for his _LIttle, Big_, _Aegypt_ and _Love & Sleep_.  Altho
Crowley shares little in the way of style or sensibility with
Pynchon (on the surface, anyhow), they're both genius wordsmiths
intent on building elaborate recursive prose structures revolving
around power, the Sixties, mysticism, etc.  Check out Crowley
and see if I'm right.
Also, the many, many references to Buddhism and Zen in _Vineland_
lead me (a sometime practioner) to believe that P. might very
well have been connected with or still be connected to one 
Buddhist organization  or another.  Anyone intent on literally
tracking the man down could do worse than to check out temple
memberships.
Paul

--
Paul Di Filippo/2 Poplar St./Providence, RI 02906/401-751-0139
"Those who can, screw; those who can't, preach. Those who can't
preach, preach preaching."