Vineland and V.

[Jeremy Osner]

Steven Maas (CUTR) wrote In response to your:
> > >In other ways too parts of the Whole Sick
> > >Crew chapters to my ear resonate with sophomoric sensibilities.
> 
> > 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

I read V. only recently and quite enjoyed it, particularly the WSC
chapters. (I found the Stencil chapters frequently too labored.) But
then I've always been a sophomore (lover of sillyness) at heart.

Jeremy