Vineland and V.

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

In response to my comment on V.:  
> For example, women who hang around with the Crew (except, of course, for
> the major ones) are often not given names, are referred to as camp
> followers or something, and are not given any characteristics to
> distinguish one from another. In contrast, male characters, even those
> who just stop in for one or two mentions, are generally named and given
> one or more distinguishing characteristics. 

Jimmy doktor wrote:
> Admittedly there are more men than women in V.
[snip]
> There may be reasons to dis V., but a somewhat unbalanced gender ratio
> isn't a sound one.  
[snip]
> But really, now: how does
> having more male characters than female characters make V. flawed?

But I didn't say anything about the number of male and female characters!

In response to my:
> >In other ways too parts of the Whole Sick
> >Crew chapters to my ear resonate with sophomoric sensibilities.

Jimmy doktor said:
> Well, yes.  What's the point--that writing about people with sophomoric
> sensibilities is silly?  That enjoying those sensibilities is worse?  It is
> the contrast--and the occasional intersection--between the sophomoric
> sensibilities of the WSC and the horrors of 20th century as chronicled by
> Stencil that make V. so surprising, so incredible and so enjoyable.

My point, not clearly stated, was that much of the writing in the Whole
Sick Crew chapters of V. now strikes me as suggesting sophomoric
sensibilities on the part of the author.  While succumbing to such
sophomoric sensibilities may be satisfying to some, to me it seriously
subtracts from the sublimeness of the story. 

Not to say I didn't enjoy those chapters--and some excerpts are truly
transcendent--but overall I find them seriously flawed in a way that the
rest of V., and GR and M&D, aren't. 

	Steve Maas

> > All this
> > aside, I still rate V. as a great, though flawed, work.
> 
> One can find flaws in any creative work.  You could probably persuade me of
> some in V.  But the two examples given don't.