No subject

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

"The weaknesses are interesting, as Proust's was as pointed out by Nabakov.  I 
think one of Pynchon's weaknesses is his reliance on cartoon characters as 
opposed to fleshed-out beings.  He can do fleshed-out, but so much of his 
writing is a form of coded message that he uses characters as symbols and 
shortchanges their humanity. And that's OK to a degree, but sometimes (as in 
Vineland) it goes too far, and the result is inner emptiness."

I'd like to read those Nabokov comments on Proust. I'm already uncomfortable 
with the characterization of homosexuality in "Sodom & Gomorrah" and I'm only 73 
pages into that one. But of course, there are other pleasures to be found in 
Proust.

I like Vineland more with each reading, and find the "extremes and in betweens" 
of Blood & Vato, Prairie, the Thanatoids and all the other folks in Vineland as 
amusing and satisfying as any of Pynchon's other characters. Then again, I've 
always had a thing for animated cartoons. The "cartoonishness" of the characters 
in Vineland ties in with Tubaholic themes of the book. 

I don't expect much sweetness & light (or fully developed charecters) from 
Raymond Chandler either.