Meshugginah posts, and other things sundry

[Vaska]

Hello, again, gang.  Seeing how Jules has just mentioned me, I'll chirp in
with some comments of my own.

OK, and for starters: are we reaching new heights of idolatry that we can't
take it when Pynchon screws on a word?  I've seen some people argue that
"meshugginah" can be written off as a goof we should ascribe to a character
-- so, a piece of superb naturalism on Pynchon's part.  Naturalism?  There,
where the intent is so palpably to break the illusion of historical realism,
and to give us all a little harmless giggle to boot?  Don't think so.

On the other hand, there's been all sorts of shouting about how Pynchon
writes satire, for goodness sake, and surrealism, and ....  All of which is
true; and as any writer worth his/her salt might tell us, if you're setting
out to produce some heavy-duty surrealistic effects and narratives, the
first thing you have to make sure is to get your details absolutely right.
No ifs, buts or maybes about it.  To see a master do it, have a look at some
of Angela Carter's short stories or _The Magic Toyshop_, for example.  It's
hard work, surrealism, when done well.  Pynchon himself would be the first
to agree, which is precisely why he goes to the trouble of researching his
stuff backwards and forwards, and then some more.  Since _GR_ he's been
caught napping a couple of times -- as I think Steelhead tried to say some
months ago [am I misreading you atrociously, oh Man of Steel?].  It's not
the end of the world, I think, and I for one don't mind a bit that Jules
corrected my misapprehension on that score.  

I'm also the last reader, or member of this list, who could claim to know
whether or not Pynchon got the NC drug scene right.  I just don't have the
background and find it fascinating that, once again, all hell's broken loose
because it seems Pynchon might have been faking it.  I never thought
_Vineland_ was about the NC drug scene, but it certainly does touch on
politics here and there, so the question of how Pynchon has chosen to
portray that time and that place is not a trivial one at all.  And satire
has nothing to do with this either -- there's too much going on in
_Vineland_ to straightjacket the novel inside any neat generic category.
Etc.  

My own point, way back when, was not about Pynchon's accuracy -- again, I've
no idea what that would be, in terms of the NC drug scene circa 1970 -- but
about the man's ear.  And I'm not talking about any boxers at the moment.
Reading Pynchon is a sensuous experience of a very high order: his love of
language and his ability to mould the English sentence to his needs are both
astonishing.  The only other American writer who comes close to this level
of word-magic, and even surpasses it at times, is Toni Morrison, and her
novels too are a treat for the senses.  

I also tend to agree with Jules that Pynchon's novels are a world to
themselves, that there is a vision at work here whose relation to the world
of lived life is not quite as simple as I used to believe.  [And I never
imagined it was simple.] Authenticity may be a red herring, the wrong word,
I think.  But Pynchon does make certain claims about the writer's ability to
get the truth of that lived life in a way that may escape a "mere"
historian.  In _M&D_ he goes to the trouble of spelling that claim out,
staking a territory for himself as a truth-teller of sorts.  Which is not a
small claim to make.  Wherever it touches on our political choices, on the
possibilities and realities of what we do to one another as political
beings, it's as serious as it can get.  Which is why _Vineland_ remains, for
me, such a thin and unsatisfactory work.  It's an all too easy parody of a
time and things Pynchon does not seem to have wanted or been able to know
more intimately.  We all pay for the risks we refuse to take, and writers
pay for them by. . .    Well, you get my drift.

One last comment: how many of the other people on the list have read
Pynchon's article on Watts?  It came out in the LA Times, some time in 196?,
I think.  It's as moving as any piece of fiction he's written and miles
better than either _Vineland_ or _L49_.   Compare it to _M&D_ and then let's
talk about what's happened to Pynchon's human and political vision in the
meantime.  And why, at 60, he feels he should use a cheap little trick
afforded by 18th-century orthography to get a little mileage out of that
"Other," for example.  There are all sorts of seductions in this world, and
gorgeous prose is an aphrodisiac in its own right.  Which may be all that we
are getting in _M&D_, I'm afraid.    

Vaska