Vineland underrated

[Carvill John]

Hi all

Well I certainly got more than I bargained for!

On 25 Sep 2003 09:25:36  Terrance <lycidas2@[omitted]> wrote:
>We're all pretty confused about it, but maybe you can help straighten us
>out because I for starters don't have no idea how anyone could review VL
>and complain about it's apparent Left-Wingedness. VL is certainly not an
>overt Left-Wing novel.

Well, I didn't actually claim that Vineland is a 'Left-Wing novel', I think 
what I said was that it displayed Pynchon's left-wing viewpoint. To me, it 
is indisputably about (among other things) the contrast between 1960s 
radicalism and 1990s totalitarianism, how the struggle of the 60s against a 
right-wing establishment, particularly personified in Richard Nixon, had 
faded away by the time Reagan came to power. In particular, it's a lament 
for how the youth culture of the 60s became corroded to such an extent that 
the youth of the 90s didn't need subverting in order to bring them into 
line, they were already in line. Business Studies (dread phrase) became the 
most popular degree course and the police, military, FBI, CIA, etc. were 
viewed as heroic and joining their ranks became seen as a laudable career 
ambition. Coupled with this is the way in which the right-wing consistently 
lampoons the whole decade of the 1960s, smothering all the great things 
about that time in a blanket of revisionism.

To be honest, I find it incredible that anyone could read Pynchon in 
general, and Vineland in particular, without realising that Pynchon's 
political sympathies are, at the very least, broadly left-wing. The 
convenient fact, for those of a right-wing persuasion, that some of the 
left-wing characters, eg. Frenesi, 'sell out' should not obscure that what 
characters with their own human weaknesses and imperfections sell out to, is 
essentially evil. In Vineland, I feel that Pynchon's sympathies with the 
counter-cultural movement of the 1960s, of which he was surely a part, are 
simply displayed more openly or explicitly than previously. And this may in 
fact be the answer to my original question: the book is unpopular with 
right-wing Pynchon fans, a category I had not previously known to exist, 
because it leaves no doubt in the reader's mind as to the political views of 
the author. As well as offering a sad account of the ultimate failure of the 
traditional left and the student radicals to combine their forces during the 
60s, it paints a depressing but accurate picture of the Reagan years, a 
decade where the right became even more extreme and the left, most notably 
among the youth, pretty much fizzled out and died.

It's a curious phenomenon: a right-wing reader doesn't like an author's 
politics, but instead of switching to another author, he simply changes the 
author's politics for him! Who next will you be claiming wasn't left-wing? 
Bill Hicks?


On 25 Sep 2003 07:30:08 Malignd <malignd@[omitted]> wrote:
>Floozy with an Uzi, Billy Barf and the Vomitones,
>Fruit Loops and Nestle's Quick--very little of this
>goes a long way.

If you don't like Pynchon's humour, why are you a fan? And are funny names 
unique to Vineland?


On  Thu, 25 Sep 2003 08:10:14 "Steve Maas" <tyronemullet@[omitted]> wrote:
>Overall I think VL is an important book in what it says about the US under 
>Nixon and Reagan and in what it says about the heartbreaking weakness of 
>otherwise good people for Der Fuerher, El Duce, Big Daddy-O. And it 
>certainly has its moments of brilliance and clarity.

Exactly. It's a sad commentary on that dark spot in human nature that 
embraces fascism.

On 25 Sep 2003 17:45:55  Mike Weaver <mikeweaver@[omitted]> wrote:

>Vineland IMLWO is a novel written by a writer with clear left wing/radical 
>sympathies, who has chosen to take some time to tell a tale of hopes, 
>actions and betrayals where the norm is the activity of radicals, lefties 
>and drop-outs, where the betrayal is occasioned by the daughter of a strong 
>labour movement/socialist family tradition taking up with and working for 
>the (capitalist) Establishment. The novel ends with the annual gathering of 
>that family, taking the prodigal back into its warmth, thereby reasserting 
>the communal values of the Wobblies and their descendants.
>(In my chapter notes I referred to Harry Chaplin's book where he says of 
>the IWW that by the 1930s the balance of activity leaned more towards 
>'entertainment'  i.e. socials, picnics etc.)
>A novel doesn't have to be a call to arms to be left wing, it only has to 
>be critical of the established system while asserting  positive social 
>possibilities as an alternative, something VL does rather well.

I agree. Surely it is the fact that someone who comes from such a strong 
left-wing background could sell out which makes the story so tragic?


On 25 Sep 2003 14:36:18 Terrance <lycidas2@[omitted]> wrote:
Subject: Re: Vineland underrated

>In CH 6 Pynchon simply rips a few pages out of Labor History and pastes
>them onto Frenesi's Mother's Family. A Parody of Forest Gump? But he
>doesn't even splice the characters into the film clips, he makes a list
>and tapes it to Frenesi's turned back.

Two points here:

1. Pynchon's inclusion of 'a few pages out of Labor History' surely 
indicates that he is in sympathy with the labour movement?

2. Even for a writer of Pynchon's abilities, would it not be remarkably 
prescient to have parodied Forest Gump before the film was made?

Cheers

John

_________________________________________________________________
Instant message during games with MSN Messenger 6.0. Download it now FREE!  
http://msnmessenger-download.com