VLVL2 (3): Purple Pynchon Prose

[Tim Strzechowski]

And, lest we forget when discussing all the politics and pop culture, Pynchon is simply a masterful writer, and one of the best sentences (stylistically) I've encountered in Vineland so far is:

"The arrangements of hillside levels, alleyways, corners, and rooftops created a Casbah topography that was easy to get lost in quickly, terrain where the skills of the bushwhacker became worth more than any resoluteness of character, and architechtural version of the uncertainty, the illusion, that must have overtaken his career for him ever to've been assigned there in the first place" (25).

This paragraph is simply beautiful (or, as Keith might say, it gives me "shivers"), and sort of reminds me of the passage in Lot 49:

"The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had" (24).

Of course, the poeticism of the Vineland passage seems to echo some of those brilliant passages in GR (is it me, or does Pynchon wax poetic when discussing architecture?), and the Lot 49 sentence, while also dealing with description of location, also reminds me of a passage (Vineland?) wherein he describes the highway system of southern California.

Tim


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