High School Pynchon vs. Angst

[Ted Samsel]

  I read _V_ back in '65 or '66 in highschool. This was after reading
CATCH-22 and being blown back (or forward) into reality. You see, I
(like many of my generation) was brought up on the John Wayne tiger-flick
and read a great deal of military history as an adolescent. You know,
the more obscure, the better.... The Zulu War, Spanish Civil War, the
Moro Insurrection, Orde Wingate's Chindits, the Chetniks, the Anglo-
American Expeditionary Forces to Murmansk & Vladivostok during the
last Rooshian Civil War, etc...
  I can thank Joseph Heller for corrupting me. (But, try as I might,
none of his later novels seemed readable to me. And Lord knows, I've tried.)
  As for angst, hey, it ain't a monopoly for the young & "sensitive"...
Nothing like waitin' on a biopsy or waitin' to see if your offspring
will live or die.

tejas at infi.net
           "Eat some blackeyed peas and fried banana,
            smoke me a seegar from Havana,
            I'll be the King of Louisiana"   
                             (It's gonna be) PAYDAY  Porter Wagoner