Re: VLVL2 4.15 "More is Less"

[Tim Strzechowski]

> 4.15 "More is Less"
>
> Doublethink.  War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. & etc.
>


Yes, and this term (coupled with the _1984_ connotations) anticipates the
motif of "doubles" and "pairs" that will occur throughout the novel as well.

"Order and coherence have always been issues for readers of Pynchon's texts.
Following the remarkable difficulties of _Gravity's Rainbow_, _Vineland_
appears deceptively simple: it has a relatively clear narrative, which
develops over three decades among a few central characters.  Yet, despite
the novel's comparative 'readability,' it has again raised the question of
connections, of pattern and meaning

[...]

"For Pynchon [...] the narrative develops its own unique logic of
connectedness through permutations, comparisons, inversions, and variations.
_Vineland_, in particular, juggles doubles and pairs, configurations of two
both alike and dissimilar.  As befits a story of double-dealing, the novel
is full of images of duplicity: of doubles, twins, partners, and foils,
involved in acts of deception, conversion, and disguise.  some of the
characters feel deep, inner divisions; each has a reflected other self or
double.  The world, too, is zygomorphic; reality itself is not single, any
more than Pynchon's narrative is, but rather bifurcated, entwined,
duplicitous.  Repeated allusions invoke a second or alternative reality
beside the one characters seem to inhabit -- like that other 'mode of
meaning behind the obvious' intuited by Oedipa Mass when she understands how
reduced the possibilites have become in America.

[...]

"Beyond forming coherence for the novel through a repeated pattern of
spectacular images, doubling also generates plot events and illuminates
Pynchon's concern with choice and responsibility. [...] Doubles of various
kinds play off against each other throughout _Vineland_ to establish, in
their bifurcating routes, the gravity of choice."

from Susan Strehle, "Pynchon's 'Elaborate Game of Doubles' in _Vineland_"
(pp. 101-118) in _The Vineland Papers_.


There's more to it, obviously, but I'll post additional excerpts later in
the group read, as they become relevant.

Tim