The Big One

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>

"The group reading of Vineland that took place here a few years ago demonstrated beyond any possibility of doubt, that this novel is layered and subtle in ways that don't become apparent without study - so, not only is it fun to read for what it has to add to the conversation about the 60s, fun Tube stuff, & etc., Vineland also repays close reading."  

For one thing, it has a beating heart at its center. About the time he was working on Vineland, TRP wrote this (in the introduction of Slow Learner):

"The Small Rain" was my first published story. A friend who'd been away in the army the same two years I'd been in the navy supplied the details. The hurricane really happened, and my friend's Signal Corps detachment had the mission described in the story. Most of what I dislike about my writing is present here in embryo, as well as in more advanced forms. I failed to recognize, just for openers, that the main character's problem was real and interesting enough to generate a story on its own. Apparently I felt I had to put on a whole extra overlay of rain images and references to "The Waste Land" and "A Farewell to Arms". I was operating on the motto "Make It Literary", a piece of bad advice I made up all by myself and then took.