Sufferin' Succotash

[Dave Monroe]

The mixture of "fact" and fantasy is no blend, for
each discredits the other. The fantasy isn't
fantastic, and the history is insistently
ideological....

The voices of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are
prominently and frequently employed, as three
generations of left-wing cliches are trotted out in an
endless procession. The Californication of Amerika!
Pynchon's favorite word is "paranoia." He seems to use
it whenever he wants to distance himself from the
extravagances of fellow travelers, dopeheads, hippies,
and other strange bedfellows, but rhetoric betrays
him. His politics and theology are those of the
preterist and the professional victim. There is
feminist jargon. There is socialist blather. He swings
wildly, but never lands a glove, and it's because he's
in a clinch with sentimentality the feinting alter ego
of his icy alienation.

The only really interesting thing about Vineland is
its success, both critical and popular. Critical
puffery you can attribute to admiration of the book's
politics....

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n8_v42/ai_8370042

http://www.nationalreview.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review

http://www.isi.org/books/bookdetail.aspx?id=109927b6-3319-4cc2-a040-73d1bdd307e9

I corrected the typo @ "polities" there ...

--- jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> And one of the more typical, negative (scathing,
> in fact: e.g., "The  story hits so many false notes
> it's embarrassing and exasperating to recite them")
> reviews of _Vineland_:
> 
> 'Sufferin' Succotash'
> by J.O. Tate, _National Review_ April 30, 1990, p.
> 59.

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