Vineland, anonymity, limbo

[Ronkarate at aol.com]

Hi All-

I'm just finishing up my first reading of _Vineland_, which I've begun
repeatedly since it was published but had heretofore been unable to finish.
I'm enjoying it more this time through, though it still doesn't tickle my
proverbial fancy the way his other works have. 
My first exposure to Pynchon was when I was fifteen. My parents would take
luxurious vacations to exotic locales every summer, and I would, without
fail, stay locked in the hotel room with a stack of books that I would plow
through. One summer, I've forgotten where this particular excursion took us,
I had taken along a copy of _COL49_ based on a blurb which compared Tom
Robbins (who I was reading at the time) to TRP. I still remember reading this
book with awe, nothing I had been exposed to before had affected me in the
same way. I was awestruck by the flawless mix of low brow humor with
stylistic flair (though I probably wouldn't have described it that way at
15), and I ended up reading it twice in two weeks. The authors I had been
reading (Brautigan, Vonnegut, Robbins) seemed to lose their particular magic
after my exposure to Pynchon.  After that I read the rest of the works
available, though, admittedly, _GR_ was a big pain in my teenage ass and I'm
sure that my reading was more a labor of duty than pleasure. Now I'm finally
finishing _Vineland_, and planning to make my first post-adolescent attempt
at _GR_ this summer. (As a side-note, the only other author who has even come
close to touching a similar nerve was John Barth with _Giles Goat Boy_ and
_The Sot Weed Factor_, though I have found his works somewhat inconsistent.)

A few premature observations on _Vineland_. I think that the prevalent
viewpoint in this group that _VL_ is somehow more personal than the other
works is somewhat unfounded. Sure, it has an overtly nostalgic aura, but that
nostalgia is not, to this reader, grounded in any particular POV. I, too,
began feeling that this was some misty eyed reminiscence of the sixties until
I reached the following passage:
"Brock Vond's genius was to have seen the activities of the sixties left not
threats to order but unacknowledged desires for it. While the Tube was
proclaiming youth rebellion against parents of all kinds...Brock saw the
deep...need only to stay children forever, safe inside some extended national
family."
Some 200-plus pages into _VL_, my images of these characters were completely
changed by this passage. I'm not making any assumptions as to what was
intended, but it seems that trying to pinpoint TRP's particular Grand Scheme
or Great Message (as Gore Vidal does in the recently posted quote) is futile.

This is notably due to his lack of public persona. We are unable to
understand works based on the author's intentions, because so little
information is available (similar, in ways, to the mystery surrounding, and
resulting fascination with, Shakespeare). What we end up with is a nearly
pure work of art, untainted by knowledge of the author. We are unable to say,
"when Pynchon was on Letterman he said 'yada yada yada'". Too many artists
today are over-eager to explain the meaning of their works, and I find being
forced to draw my own conclusions refreshing.

Another question which has arisen during my reading of _VL_ is regarding the
issue of purgatory: Frenesi's 'death' in to the witness re-location program,
the Thanatoids, Takeshi's suspended state after DL applies the death touch.
There's a passage which directly refers to this when Prarie is watching the
24fps films:
"Prarie floated, ghostly light of head, as if Frenesi were dead but in a
special way, a minimum-security arrangement, where limited visits, mediated
by projector and screen, were possible."
Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.