Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia

[Robert Mahnke]

Further to this, Google Book Search turns up Constructing Postmodernism, by Brian McHale (Routledge, 1992).  Chapter 5 is titled, "Zapping, the art of switching channels: on Vineland," and starts (p 115) with Zoyd leaping through the fake-real window.  Alas, but Google only lets me see the first two pages of the chapter.

http://books.google.com/books?id=KBxNCnpGB9IC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=vineland+zoyd+wheeler+window&source=web&ots=vmEh8sCfdS&sig=IsntZ4F57Jnz24mhjfH3e2OHlyQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robert Mahnke <robert_mahnke at earthlink.net>
>Sent: Dec 1, 2008 10:53 AM
>To: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia
>
>
>In my mind at least, a key feature of post-modernist art is self-awareness and self-referentiality -- an acknowledgement of the artifice of the project. Viceland certainly goes there, starting with Zoyd's dive through a plate-glass window that isn't glass but candy, the better to simulate a dive through a glass window.  
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>>Sent: Dec 1, 2008 10:38 AM
>>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>Subject: Re: Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia
>>
>>As a concept of a sequential period of time, post WW2 is mostly  
>>postmodern.
>>Try "Catch 22" and "Slaughterhouse 5". Then there's the notion of  
>>revisionist
>>history. The story we're sold is that "the sixties" was a time of  
>>social foment
>>and incredible drugs. "Vineland" shows the central importance of  
>>Television
>>and Television generated products: Fruit Loops, Count Chocula, "designer
>>water" and "Made for TV" movies. Vineland also flips all those tales  
>>we were
>>taught from the tube, demonstrating just how far "the man" got into our
>>subconscious via cop shows and their ilk.
>>
>>In my mind, Postmodern is post-God, at least the version of God we  
>>were taught
>>in Sunday School. Some time during the last month I realized that  
>>"Wicca" really
>>is more like a form of Postmodern Mysticism. Most self-described  
>>Wiccans I've
>>encountered have a mish-mosh of belief systems. This is definitely  
>>reflected in
>>Vineland, with what seems like good old western magic getting all  
>>mixed up
>>with Buddhist and other oriental mystical philosophies.
>>
>>On top of all that, Vineland often comes off as the biggest, wildest  
>>"Simpsons"
>>episode evah.
>>
>>On Dec 1, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 7:45 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>  
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Described as 'postmodern' in wikipedia listing.
>>>>
>>>> How, besides that it was published AFTER modernism, does "Vineland"  
>>>> get called that?
>>>
>>> See, e.g., ...
>>>
>>> Totalizing Postmodernism: Master-narratives in Pynchon's Vineland
>>> By Bruce A. Sullivan
>>>
>>> http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/papers_sullivan.html
>>>
>>> On the other hand ...
>>>
>>> Palmeri, Frank.
>>> Other than Postmodern?--Foucault, Pynchon, Hybridity, Ethics
>>> Postmodern Culture - Volume 12, Number 1, September 2001
>>>
>>> http://www.muse.uq.edu.au/login?uri=/journals/pmc/ 
>>> v012/12.1palmeri.html
>>>
>>> ... but do note that for Jean-François Lyotard, at least, that "post"
>>> isn't necessarily chronological.  St. Augustine was "ppsotmodern"
>>> according to JFL ...
>>>
>>
>>
>
>