Pynchon's politics, as exhibited in Vineland

[Carvill John]

<<
"But what is perhaps most interesting, finally, about [Vineland] is what is 
different about it. What is interesting is the willingness with which he 
addresses, directly, the political development of the United States, and the 
slow (but not total) steamrollering of a radical tradition many generations 
and decades older than flower power. There is a marvelously telling moment 
when Brock Vond's brainchild, his school for subversion in which lefties are 
re-educated and turned into tools of the state, is closed down because in 
Reagan's America the young think like that to begin with, they don't need 
re-education."
>>

Indeed, a classic quotation from a rare rave review of Vineland.

I would say that for anyone who shares a broadly left-leaning political 
worldview, the fact that Pynchon does too is readily apparent from reading 
his other works, Vineland aside. It's comparable to standing next to someone 
at a concert who's smoking a joint: if you don't know the smell of burning 
marijuana then you'll maybe not recognise it, but if you do then there's no 
mistaking it. With Vineland, he just made the politics explicit.

Cheers

JC