V. vs CoL49

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

  I agree Arturo.  I read _The Crying of Lot 49_ after having read 
_Vineland_, _Gravity's Rainbow_, and _V._ (which is quickly surpassing GR 
as my favorite--but don't hold me to that just yet).  I don't know what 
it is. . .I mean, everyone seems to just praise 'Crying' up an down with 
little, it seems, serious attention given to _V._, a far more interesting 
and, forgive me, meaningful novel.  Sometimes I think it was the 
timing--I mean, it seems like to love 'Crying' the way some do, you've 
got to be mad for semiotics.  It provides justification for those who 
love Pynchon to say they love this book.  It also offers professors who 
want to "teach" Pynchon a way to do so without forcing her/him to really 
do much work;  deferring to the complex and unreliable nature of signs, 
etc. . . . global comments that don't require much thought and don't do 
much to upset power relations--the professor sounds very intelligent, 
underscoring the role as authority and the student hurries to scribble 
"instablility of signs--review Saussere".
Forgive my rant, but this is the extent of Pynchon studies as offerred by 
our system.  Only by rare coincidence (?) did we get Judith Chambers to 
teach a course one summer as an adjunct or something.  Only then did we 
go beyond a mention of "Crying" in a contemporary lit course (an I mean a 
mention--we didn't ever read it, just _heard_, briefly, about it).  But 
even in Dr. Chambers' course, we only read _Vineland_ and GR, with her 
consistent , persistent recommendation that we read _V._  And she kept 
telling me, personally, that she thought I'd like it.
	
Like it I did!  _V._ is, I believe, one of the most important books in 
this century--ever, really.  As  a woman particularly, I am drawn to it.  
I've heard so many discussions on how Pychon is a "guy thing".  Not at 
all.  Unless you can read his work as devoid of any satire, then you 
would be foolish to suggest that it's just a guy thing.  If anything, 
it's the guy who's the satirist's target.  Women are, especially in _V._ 
extremely powerful and free.  It is their power and their ability to 
exercise it that become man's undoing.  Recoginizing this, they do all 
they can to destroy her.  Yes, she is diminished--tricked often, 
saddened.  Yet she is powerful.  Underscoring the nature of the cover 
up--the one that's been going on for centuries, the one that is 
instigated and maintained by men who pursue the eternal destruction of 
this power, particularly by writing histories that favor male 
hegemony--Pynchon shows his readers "the horror" of a male order built 
upon destruction, much like Conrad did earlier in the century.  Kurtz 
goes into the heart of darkness and learns of his "true nature".  The 
truth of Vheissu?  Kurt Mondaugen faces a similar epiphany,which begins 
when he too leaves innocently to study (weather?) and encounters visions 
of a horrific imperialistic impulse that hurtles him further into an 
encounter with madness.
I could go on, but it's getting late.  Suffice it to say that aRturo is 
right in suggesting that _V._ is overlooked.  I'm doing what I can to 
uncover some of its power ( in the form of a hopefully publishable 
article).  REgardless of its status in that regard, I'm glad to do the 
work and share it with others.  Sorry to leave so abruptly.  I've got to 
sleep now.  Any comments?  I'd lvoe to talk more on this topic.

Bonnie Lenore Surfus
USF
surfus at chuma.cas.usf.edu