ATD: NO SPOILERS NO PAGE # Re: Rocketmen and Wastelands

[Tore Rye Andersen]

I think that the flat characters was an early weakness of Pynchon's, 
especially evident in V. Both Benny Profane and Herbert Stencil are somewhat 
cartoonish, and are clearly meant to represent The Street and The Hothouse, 
respectively. Pynchon also seems painfully aware of this early weakness - 
just read the intro to Slow Learner - and I think he has consciously tried 
to flesh out his characters over the years. There is still the occasional 
cardboard figure to be found lurking in the margin of  GR, Vineland and M&D, 
but the same can be said of authors like Roth and Bellow who are usually 
praised for their realistic portrayals of character. And I find that the 
central characters of GR, Vineland and M&D - Slothrop, Mexico, Pökler, Zoyd, 
Frenesi, Prairie, DL, Mason, and Dixon - are as fully realized and 
fleshed-out as any character out of Roth. (I won't try to make you believe 
that I cry when I read fiction - I don't, not even when I read Tolstoy or 
Dostoevsky - but I would lie to you if I said that Slothrop, that poor 
schmuck, doesn't give me the occasional lump in the throat as he moseys 
cluelessly - and deeply alone - around in the Zone).

So I can partly agree with you on the cartoonish charges, but I absolutely 
have to disagree with your critique of the chaotic and encyclopedic nature 
of Pynchon's novels: Heck, that chaos is one of the most important aspects 
of novels like GR and M&D: If you like your fiction to be carefully plotted 
and exquisitely structured like for instance "The Great Gatsby", then I can 
certainly see why you would dislike the chaotic aspect of Pynchon's longer 
novels. But IMO GR and M&D aren't attempts to order the world in a piece of 
fiction. T. S. Eliot described Joyce's mythical method as "a way of 
controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the 
immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history". 
Pynchon's long novels are not really attempts to control, order and give 
shape to this immense panorama. They're attempts to REFLECT this panorama, 
with all its confusion, all its dread and all its information overload. The 
encyclopedic nature of his novels simply provide a realistic reflection of 
the barrage of information we're met with daily. The lack of an overt, 
crystalline structure isn't the same as giving in to the futility of 
contemporary history, however. Value and significance can easily be found in 
the middle of all the chaos of Pynchon's novels, but in the form of small, 
local kindnesses and ad hoc adventures - not through some authorial ordering 
of all this information into a large, clear structure, or neat little 
parcels.

Now, if you REALLY want to discuss weaknesses in Pynchon's novels (and I'm 
all for it: I just can't find that many) let's talk about Pynchon's 
portrayal of women in V.

Best,

Tore

>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>

>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.
>
>Another weakness that is the flip side of his "encyclopedic" quality
>is the chaos that results from throwing in everything, including the
>kitchen sink.  That is what I fear AtD will do, both from Pychon's own
>blurb and from the PW review.
>
>David Morris

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