More Vineland--the IV read, drip, drip

[Mark Kohut]

Seconded and thirded...so well said...
It is the funniest...stand-up-like....



--- On Mon, 12/1/08, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: More Vineland--the IV read, drip, drip
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Monday, December 1, 2008, 3:49 PM
> 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?)