the style of _V._

[Brian Stonehill Media Studies Pomona College]

Ed helpfully asks what's worth saying about the style of _V._  I've just
finished teaching it to some very alert undergraduates who happen currently to
be compiling an e-list of their favorite sentences from Pynchon's first novel. 
I'll share it here if you like.  We also hope to house the homeless Pynchon web page.

Offhand I'd dissent and say that _V._ is full of... finish. (Hi Heikki!).  The
reader doesn't get apostrophized, but Pynchon does play plenty of high-modernist
tricks, e.g. passing the point of view around like a joint at a Riverside
Drive party.  And it's also the first of his works in which appear some of the
page-long tours-de-force known technically as a helluva sentence.

Cheers,  Brian