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[LBernier at tribune.com]

Andrew writes:
     
     I think mostly the problem was one of expectation, especially as 
     the years piled up. GR reeks of library sweat and toil in a way 
     that `Vineland' does not, mostly because GR is rooted in a more 
     intellectually `credible' culture, mythology and history than 
     `Vineland' (I could maybe just argue it is rooted in Europe and/or 
     the US of European tradition). This makes it appear more dense, 
     all-encompassing, treasure-laden, allusive etc.
     
     `Vineland' *necessarily* appears trivial, disconnected from `deep 
     and meaningful concerns' because its target is exactly this 
     dissociation. Sure Pynchon could have adopted a comparative 
     stance, critiquing modern-day US from the outside, from a European 
     (or other) cultural perspective. But he did that already - the 
     book's called `Gravity's Rainbow'. In `Vineland' he chose to 
     portray modern USA from within, on its own terms. Rather like `The 
     Crying of Lot 49' - and maybe there is some mileage in how `V.' 
     stands in the same relation to GR. If one stops trying to compare 
     `Vineland' to GR and starts looking at how it addresses its own 
     concerns I think he does a damn fine job.
     
You snob! ;-)  No, seriously, the point about Vineland being very American 
is a good one, but should this limit its audience?  Why is this less 
"credible?"  I don't believe that it is necessary to "adopt a comparative 
stance" in order to write about the American experience.  Deep and 
meaningful != European.  A-and I would argue that Pynchon in GR is 
critiquing Europe from a stateside point of view, not the other way around. 
 You've got the Yossarian-like image of the American serviceman fornicating 
away with less sexually repressed Euro-babes seduced by chewing gum and 
stockings.   Not to mention the association of European culture with 
decadence and death.
     
     
     I don't know. There is a lot of mysticism and lots of stuff 
     unexplained. What about all the Indian references? What on earth 
     are all those thanatoids supposed to be? What mythology do 
     Frenesi, the Virgin Prairie, Brock Vond and Zoyd belong to? (e.g. 
     account for Blood and Vato dragging Brock down into hell). Where 
     did the giant Japanese monster footprint come from? In fact where 
     did the all the Japanese stuff fit in?

Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I didn't find any of this really 
mysterious, again, maybe because of my Murrican sensibilities, but all 
of these are fairly obvious to me,  i.e,  Thanatoids = tv zombies = 
Thalidomide babies, the Japanese stuff = guilt for incarceration + 
basic fascination with Japanese economy + complicated Japan-American 
relations + Saturday morning CREATURE FEATURE (bad horror movies shown 
sat. mornings) etc.  Brock into hell?  mmm, that's one's tougher - 
Nixon, maybe?  In other words, it's pop-culture out the wazoo!
     
     In GR the unexplained stuff is unexplained in a different way. 
     There are lots of references to real history, documented 
     mythology. The problem is not recognising what the symbols stand 
     for, what system of meaning they belong to but rather how to tie 
     them into a coherent plot; because of course there is no plot, 
     only peripheral, edge-of-vision, are-They-aren't-They plotting. 
     Most things are overdetermined in GR. In `Vineland' the symbols 
     are dissociated from any background. They don't appear to signify 
     anything or rather they appear to signify but the exact 
     signification is unclear. And maybe that's appropriate to an 
     America which has lost all sense of history, religion, mythology, 
     ritual, tradition.

Whoa!  We know our place in history, we are the supreme rulers of the 
Universe.  Exterminate, exterminate! ;-)  Again, America does have a 
culture, although I would agree that is not rooted in a lot of the 
things that GB and Europe hold dear.  But oh boy, is there mythology, 
and history, and tradition:  there's the mythology of the Pioneer and 
the West, the lone individual against the world, and there's Vietnam. 
There's the puritan, the scandinavian, the african,  the chinese, the 
irish, pushing onwards, pushing westward,  building railroads, 
building towns, building industry.  There are shameful things:  
slavery, native americans, civil rights, and there are beautiful 
things:  the super highway, the skyscraper, fields of corn in July in 
Indiana.
     
     
     Global conflict notwithstanding the `civilization' stakes were 
     pretty high in the 60s (and maybe one can make a case for the 80s 
     too), just in a different way. The 60s were definitely not 
     familiar enough for me (born in 1960) to really know what TRP was 
     talking about. But `Vineland' inspired me to find out more about 
     what happened in the 60s and if ever I might in the past have had 
     to stifle a nascent sneer, never ever again. They really were 
     revolutionary times.
     
     The problem of distance (or lack thereof) was definitely there 
     for me wrt the 80s but `Vineland' certainly didn't exacerbate the 
     problem. On the contrary, it helped focus things. I don't think 
     Pynchon obfuscates. He always has his own novel take on 
     everything.

The 80's were like the total antithesis of 60's ideals.  Money, money, 
money.  Power, power, power.  But who had that money, and who had that 
power?  Guess.  Joe Jackson says it best "And all the hippies work for IBM 
. . ."  

So this whole group, like Frenesi, sells out to the power trip, then sits 
around and gets nostalgic as hell about those days of revolution and 
outrage.  Boo hoo hoo.  I guess I am ultimately ambivalent about Vineland, 
because I hate the way the surface images of the SIXTIES continue to cast a 
shadow over our culture.  All that peace love shit was a bunch of kids who 
wanted to sit around baked out of their minds all the time - granted, a 
state I was often in between 1982 and 1988 or so, BUT, I don't go trying to 
create a fucking philosophy out of it.  Pop culture has not canonized the 
people who were really doing something then, those kids killed while 
working for civil rights down in Alabama, for example.  

Anyway, enough ranting - I'm gonna piss somebody off, if I keep going.

Jean.