Vineland underrated

John Carvill jcarvill at algsoftware.com
Thu Sep 25 07:48:53 CDT 2003


On 24  Sep 2003 15:50:06 joeallonby wrote:
>Who is it that you feel is underrating Vineland?

Well Mr Bloom for one, who called Vineland 'a disaster'. 

And I (dimly) recall the negative reviews in the broadsheet press here in
the UK, when the book came out in 1990, reviews which were at least partly
responsible for my not getting round to Vineland for over 10 years: I read
it just over a year ago and couldn't believe how good it was. But of course
as I now know, when you're dealing with newspapers, you need to keep in mind
the political viewpoint of the reviewer, and Pynchon's overt left-wing views
in Vineland may have helped earn him the negative reviews.

But perhaps what surprises me most is that the book which seasoned Pynchon
fans most frequently recommend as an introduction to Pynchon, something
people should read before tackling Gravity's Rainbow, is V. The reason given
is usually that V is more accessible than GR. Well I really don't agree with
this, V may start off seeming to be a nice easy read, but I found some of
the historical episodes a slog. I would recommend Vineland as the best
introduction to Pynchon, for readers who might be intimidated by GR at
first. 


On 24 Sep 2003 21:45:02 Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:
>It sucks!

But then again he also wrote:
>It was The Great American Novel.

So I guess he's just confused!

Cheers

John 




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