Vineland's verisimilitude

[jporter]

>     Paul Murphy sez:
>
>     Much more interesting (for me, given my Gen-X subject position) is the
>     80's teenspeak TRP conjures with the voice of Prairie, which I find
>     exaggerated but generally accurate (I mean, rilly). And then there's
>     Takeshi's voice, which exactly replicates the speech patterns of
>     dubbed Japanese monster-movies -- his voice doesn't sound like a
>     botched attempt at verisimilitude, more like an entirely mediated
>     Western experience of Japanese speech (and I would argue that the
>     'mediatedness' of TRP's polylogue novel is the source of much of its
>     comedy).
>
>     Paul
>
>I have to agree.
>
>Vineland takes place around 1982, yes?  I turned 18 in 1982, which puts me
>in Prairie's cohort agewise.  I personally found Pynchon's depiction of the
>80's subculture to be dead on, and very funny, having been a part of it,
>rilly.  Interestingly, I think VL's accessability is what led me, the first
>time I read it, to dismiss it as somewhat lightweight.  It's playing off
>riffs which are current for that time, such as mall rat kids with burned
>out hippy parents, the sudden onslaught of TV badness that cable unleashed
>on the world, fear of the Japanese economic takeover by our parents, while
>kids ate up Speed Racer and Star Blazers (ok, who remembers that one?) and
>Sony Walkman.  I didn't even have to think about it when I first read it,
>it was my world it was describing.
>
>Can't comment on the 60s speak, though.
>
>---->;-D
>
>Jean


Nice posts! I was moved by Prarie's character. It's nice to hear from "her"
contemporaries, re: verisimilitude. Thanks,

jody