Californian Sensibility

[Paul Mackin]

On Aug 23, 2006, at 9:16 AM, bekah wrote:

> I live in California and lived here in the 60s and early 70s.   I  
> only lived in Oklahoma and Texas for a brief time in the very late  
> 70s and my early childhood was spent in the mid-west.  I was 19 for  
> 1967 in Haight Asbury and I was there - on Sacramento St. and  
> elsewhere.   I've usually been here in the southern San Joaquin  
> valley, just north of Bakersfield.
>
> I love Vineland; it was my intro to Pynchon.   I enjoyed Drop City  
> by Boyle but it's certainly not his best,  Riven Rock and Tortilla  
> Curtain both take place in California - maybe others?  (it's early)  
> I enjoy Dideon, too,  fwiw although I've only read The White Album  
> and Year of Magical Thinking but they were both quite good.  Like  
> others,  I really ought to read Slouching ...
>
> Fwiw,  I think you can "get" Vineland,  Boyle and Dideon without  
> living here.  Only Dideon is native and left long ago.  Try Umberto  
> Eco's Travels in Hyper-reality for essays about California's love  
> affair with and faith ins fakes.   It's really quite funny.
>
> Bekah


I was born and bred  in California and like Didion have a California  
sensibility. Also like Joan I have no feel for the Hippies.  
Completely wrong generation. When I  lived in San Francisco in he  
early 50s I don't think I ever crossed the intersection of  Haight   
and Asbury. All the counter cultural activity was in a completely  
different part of town.

I agree  with  Bekah that you don't have to  be a  Californian to get  
Vineland. In fact if you're a native you're apt  to  find  the book  
kind of Eastern feeling.