Vineland mediocre?

[jbor]

Yes, I'd agree with this too. Much in _Vineland_ is made to seem shallow, or
sophomoric, in the comparison.

_A Streetcar Named Desire_ and _Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf_ are two more
to add to the list.

best


on 9/7/02 4:27 AM, Tim Strzechowski at dedalus204 at attbi.com wrote:

> Obviously, any time we deal with "better" in terms of literature, it's a
> question of taste. And to weigh a novel against a play, it's apples and
> oranges anyway.
> 
> But, that said, Miller does a far more powerful job of exploring the themes
> of lost illusions and eluded dreams than Pynchon does in Vineland. The story
> of Willy Loman and his family is more universal, more applicable to the rest
> of us because we, too, experience the frustrations with our jobs, our
> children, our lives. Vineland -- though a very good novel and far better
> than any fiction I could ever produce -- isn't as good as Salesman when it
> comes to exploring the aforementioned themes, in my opinion.  The situations
> that the characters find themselves in are a bit too surreal; that's not to
> say they don't have significance, but the play examines these themes in a
> more everyday way.  Does it make sense?  Kinda difficult to define.