vineland

[Paul DiFilippo]

Dear Folks,
Like all of you (probably) I read VINELAND the month of its
appearance.  I haven't gone back to it yet, but at the time
I jotted down these ten thoughts, which I thought I'd
broadcast for what they're worth.
1)  Thomas Pynchon _is_ Zoyd Wheeler.  Forced to "act insane"
to earn his living, Zoyd embodies the bind Pynchon's in:
compelled by audience expectations to "write crazy."  (Wasn't
the title of the NYT Rushdie review "Still Crazy etc."?)  And,
like Tyrone Slothrop in GR (who shares Pynchon's ancestors),
Zoyd gradually disappears from the novel, as Pynchon has
disappeared from public view.
2)  The first name of the character Frenesi Gates should be
pronounced "free 'n' easy," not "frenn-essi."
3)  Frenesi's experiences with the 24fps film collective
extend and riff on a similar motif in GR, namely the filming
of Katje Borgesius and the cinema of Germany in the '20's.
4)  Vineland begins with a V.
5)  The much-cited passage from VINELAND about "God being the 
ultimate hacker," which has so impressed critics is not a new
metaphor on Pynchon's part, extending back as it does to LOT 49.
"For now it was like walking among matrices of a great digital 
computer, the zeroes and ones twinned above, hanging like
balanced mobiles right and left,
ahead, thick, maybe endless."
6)  The treatment of multinationals (Chipco) and the country
of Japan (in the character of Takeshi Fumimota) and the
portrayal of the girl assassin DL Chastain, all indicate
quite convincingly that Pynchon has read and absorbed cyberpunk,
specifically (natch) Gibson.
7)  _Nothing_ in VINELAND is ever brought to a conclusion.
Hector Zuniga's stint with Tubal Detox; the monster that
stomped Japan; the fate of the Thantoids; midair hijackings--
everything trails off inconclusively, without final explanation.
In a book concerned with new beginnings--check out the 
epigram up front--this is fitting.  And the one exception to this 
deliberate failure to resolve--the climactic ferrying of Brock
Vond to the underworld--is apt in that he represents an old
order hopefully now ending.
8)  There is only one actual place named Vineland in the US
(according to my atlas) and it's in New Jersey.  According to
my old Columbia desk encyclopedia (circa 1950), Vineland, NJ, is 
"the seat of a large training school for sub-normal children,"
a fair description of Pynchon's imaginary CA county.  The 
historical, semi-mythical Vineland, natch, is generally thought
to have been most likely located in New England, home to 
P"s ancestors.
9)  The funniest throwaway line in the book is "the _Italian
Wedding Fake Book_ by Deleuze and Guattari."
10)  There are only two paths for an artist who has produced
a gigantic publically acclaimed masterpiece (GR), if he
wishes to keep on working.  To top himself or to defuse
expectations by (temporarily) playing an easier game for
lesser stakes.  To heighten or to simplify, in other
words.  That Pynchon has chosen the latter course does not
make him a coward or failure, but merely places him in
the company of other great artists who have found themselves
in a similar fix and chosens a similar course:  Springsteen,
Gaddis and Prince, to name a few.

--
Paul Di Filippo/2 Poplar St./Providence, RI 02906/401-751-0139
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