PYNCHON IN PULSE

[Steelhead]

hg sez:

>I find Vineland's surface wholly
>appropriate for a readership TRP seems to think as caught in chronic
>adolescence - on that one level it is just as good as GR.

I admit there are passages in Vineland as funny, lyrical, bizarre and
shimmering as anything in GR. There are also some good riffs on the Clash's
Combat Rock album, but it ain't Sandanista or London Calling now is it?

Page after page, the prose of Vineland runs in stops and starts, epileptic
fits of words, little techno-splashes of scenes and set pieces, and
in-jokes (but the circle of those in the know is so much wider this time
round, right?), all over-brimming with an obession on topical pop culture
that is more cute than meaningful. The integrity of the work itself, its
structure, is all--is there another word for it?--fucked up. It's
playwriting. A loosely connected montage of out takes. Mindless, perhaps,
but not always a pleasure--if you know what I mean...

I doubt TRP is writing for "a readership," at least I hope he hasn't crashed
to that level. One of the things I love about Pynchon is his generousity,
his faith in us glozing neuters. He's rarely so condescending as your
reading of V-land would make him out to be. If anyone is "caught in a
chronic adolescence" it seems to be TRP--not me or you. Though I think
there is another explanation for what you're getting at:  a decade or two's
endulgence in the sweet cash crop of the Emerald Triangle, a weekly blotter
or two of his discreet stockpile of Owsley's special acidic brew, and a
nightly pint of Jameson's.

As for TV, CoL 49 handles that cold, dead eye much more
economically and effectively than the overblown and sophomoric antics
of V-in-land. All that Tubal-DeTox babble makes TRP sound like Tipper Gore
on nitrous oxide.

When I survey TRP's canon I find V. his most affecting work, Vineland his
most affected (or afflicted).  You are right that CoL and Vl are similar
books. But CoL is so vastly superior. GR is obviously in a class by itself.

Steely

"...voices began calling--voices of the the Fungus Pygmies who breed in the
tanks at the interface between fuel and water-bottom began to call to him.
'Pavel! Omunene! Why don't you come back, to _see_ us? We miss you. Why
have you stayed away?'"