Wow, thanks.

[Isaac Schankler]

    Well, first let me thank everybody who replied to my message...
thoughtful and insightful replies too, they've all been helpful.  And
thanks for not "going ballistic" as someone put it, at my admittedly
somewhat gratuitous uninformed semi-insult of Pynchon.
    (I thought maybe it would generate more replies.  Heh.)
    So, here's relevant stuff... what I _did_ like about _V._...
    The nose-job scene was compelling, not just because of shock value,
but because of all the other aspects he put with it, so in the midst of
all the clarity of prose, the concreteness of the operation, there was
moral and thematic ambiguity.  One part which succeeded beautifully.
    V.'s death scene as the Bad Priest had a similar effect on me, ditto
with Mondaugen's weird fever-visions.
    McClintic Sphere would be, I suppose, my "favorite" character.  The
only one in the book that seems to be clearly redeemed.  "Keep cool, but
care."  I noticed someone else quoted that.
    I thought it was altogether weird how the moments of clarity in the
book didn't seem to come at important parts of the novel, but at
in-between intermezzos of sorts.  One would expect things to be revealed
at the climax or at least some sort of turning point.  The novel doesn't
hold together in my mind.  If I view it as a novel in a traditional sense
I have problems with it.  If I view it more as a cross-section of life, an
examination of themes, I find it to be much more interesting.
    I see Pynchon as the sort who doesn't believe in an "author" or
"reader".  Pynchon himself is a recluse... _V._ seemed to be written with
little care for the reactions of the reader... if a novel is purely to
play with reactions it's pulp, but I do believe in a... balance? ... but
that may just be an arbitrary belief on my part to justify certain
feelings I have.  (Wait... isn't that life, though?   What we do?)
    One example of his disregard for the reader is the "revelation" that
Ruby is Paola.  He introduces it quietly, just by changing "said Ruby" to
a "said Paola" somewhere in the middle of a dialogue.  It's understated,
because it's not a revelation to the characters, just the reader.  And who
is the reader?   He's not a character in the novel, Pynchon seems to say,
why cater to that?   I have to admit it was rather effective.
    He stands in interesting contrast to Italo Calvino, who drags the
reader and author into the novel until they're intertwined,
indistinguishable with each other or with characters in the novel.
Different tactics, same idea, I think.  To pose the question:  Who are
readers/authors?
    But back to Pynchon.  Alot of degeneration into the inanimate...
obviously has meaning of some sort.  But he plays with it alot, like the
animate Kilroy arising from the inanimate back-pass filter.  So what is he
trying to say with that?   Is it a message of hope:  that there is a way
back from the inanimate to the world of the living?   He seems to view the
Kilroy negatively, though.  Is he in support of the inanimate, then, in
some cases?   It's something that still intruiges and baffles me.  What do
YOU think?
    (Heh.  Sorry about that second-person reference there.)