Vineland

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

In the midst of rereading Vineland for the first time since publication,
it occurs to me that, although it does begin with a bit of a Tom Robbins
feel (not the worst fate to befall a novel anyhow), it is a fine book,
albeit not a life-changing masterpiece as is GR.  (To say that the quality
of the book is so bad that it suggests the onset of senility is not only
unnecessarily cruel but suggests a serious case of terminal nastiness and
envy.)  In keeping with changes from the '40s to the '80s They have
increased in technical sophistication.  In a flashback to the closing days
of Zoyd's marriage he takes a job with Kahuna Airlines.  The Other pulls
up 'longside the KA jet and "the festive jumbo was taken, the way a
merchant's ship and cargo might be by pirates, an easy target, an aluminum
shell dainty as a robin's egg to the other, which was solid, smaller, of
higher mass and speed."  The other's ship is able to match the Kahuna
jet's evasive action perfectly but is "not exactly a UFO."  The other
connects to the Kahuna jet.  "[S]lowly, not telescoping out, but
assembling itself fron small twinkling pieces of truss-work, the other
spun across to them a windproof access tunnel, with a cross section like a
long teardrop...."  (Vintage Pynchon trance-inducing prose here.) 
Apparently Kahuna jets are a target because the company doesn't pay
"insurance."  The Counterforce seems to be alive and well, as Takeshi
Fumimota evades Their clutches by disguising himself as a uke player
sitting in with Zoyd with "a banjo-ukelele of between-the-wars vintage." 
My point in all of this, I guess, is a defense of VL and a reminder that
if anyone out there is up for a Pynch of smack that isn't quite enough to
totally Zone ya out but will still give you that certain feeling, then VL
is a good choice. 

	Steve, waiting impatiently for M&D.