More Vineland--the IV read, drip, drip

[Robin Landseadel]

GR doesn't start as funny.

The Crying of Lot 49 tries to start funny but just winds up confused,  
and
the openings of Mason & and Dixon, followed by Against the Day, are
host-house humor, funny mostly to those expecting Pynchon. I'll give  
credit
to "V.," good opening---I wish every night was Christmas night on old
East Main.

But the first 10 pages [3---13] of Vineland would make for a classic
"Simpsons" episode, right down to Pat Sajak and Vanna White's hands.
Pynchon couldn't possibly find The Tube nearly as funny as he does  
without
being hooked to it.

If somebody wants to get in on where the notion of parodying Pynchon
potentially began, your best bet is to note just how jokey Vineland  
really is.
It's very "Simpsons", very cartoony. Sometimes Pynchon is on Matt
Groening's wavelength, particularly in the scenes with Prairie. "Blood  
& Vato"
transmogrify into "Itchy & Scratchy"  easier than pie. Though Against  
the Day
has the most jokes of Pynchon's books, somehow Vineland is the funniest.
There's a lot of playful, slothful stoners in Pynchon's novels and  
Zoyd [after that
intro in "Slow Learner"] seems like OBA beating up on himself. I'll  
bet that
there's a similar quality to "Inherent Vice", all those self-absorbed  
issues boiling
inside like that "am I really a shit or what?" you can hear in the  
constant internal
dialog of Moe Syzlak. I doubt that Pynchon would have so many  
sympathetic
portraits of schlemiels without feeling like one. Even though the  
characters are
cartoons in Vineland, they're cartoons more in the mode of the  
"Simpsons", where
there's a person under all those jokes, where the comic ineptitude [or  
excessive
eptitude] serves to make these cartoons demonstrations of recognizable  
human
behavior.

On Dec 1, 2008, at 11:42 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

>> From the start it is HILARIOUS.....reminding us (if we need
>> reminded) that TRP is at base a great COMIC writer, in more
>> than one sense.
>>
>> Zoyd's lazy, slacker [unmotivated hippie] existence,
>> hunting for cereal and smokes reminds me of Benny's time
>> around Norfolk at the start of V.
>>
>> Does any Pynchon novel BEGIN as humourously? (GR?...but so
>> darker with that screaming?)