What to read next?

[Mark Kohut]

> I vote for the consensus..........
> 
> In fact, in a kind of homage to timelessness, I vote for
> maybe reading more than one at a time???
> 
> many on the the p-list is already doing that, it seems. 
> 
> a--and we always have more than one thread going
> anyway.........
> 
> We can make some wonderfully contrapuntal, full orchestral
> sounds..........
> Talk about Stravinsky!?
> 
> 
> --- On Mon, 7/28/08, robinlandseadel at comcast.net
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> > From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> > Subject: Re: AtD (37) p. 1055, Kafkaesque dream,
> guilt, paranoia, Where is LAPD?
> > To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Date: Monday, July 28, 2008, 7:18 PM
> > Laura:
> >           Anyone up for a group read of Vineland next?
> > 
> > I'd be up for it, someone else recommends
> > "V.", I  suggested 
> > CoL 49—all have tight connections to AtD.
> > 
> > Vineland is about surveillance reversed, turning the
> > cameras on the finks.
> > 
> > Considering how much space the creation of modern-day
> spy
> > networks  
> > takes up in AtD [GR, for that matter], Vineland offers
> up
> > much relevant
> > material as regards spies, spying and the creation of
> a
> > permanent police 
> > state in the good old U.S.A. Vineland is also
> connected to
> > AtD via  the 
> > presence of Jesse Traverse and Frenesi"s taste
> for
> > C.O.P.s.
> > 
> > If it turns out to be "V.", though, I'll
> have
> > a chance at connecting with a 
> > book that has left me cold ever since I first had a
> crack
> > at it twenty years 
> > ago. On the one hand, the characters in "V."
> are
> > the thinest in any of 
> > TRP's novels—the cardboard cutouts in Against
> the Day
> > usually have
> > something funny ha-ha to say, there's a greater
> > amusement potential.
> > On the other, the time frame of "V."often
> matches
> > Against the Day, 
> > obviously OBA needed to tie up a lot of loose ends.
> > 
> > I'll end by noting here, and probably later on,
> that 
> > la Jarretière's
> > little entrance on p. 1066 is partially in the way of
> a
> > belated apology for
> > la Jarretière's scene in "V.", an ugly
> > compendium of slurs and clichés
> > on the arts scene. La Jarretière returns to assure us
> it
> > was only an 
> > outrageous stunt, no cause for concern. Must have been
> what
> > our boy 
> > was talkin' about when he said:
> > 
> >           "It is only fair to warn even the most
> > kindly disposed of readers 
> >           that there are some mighty tiresome passages
> > here, juvinile and
> >           deliquent too.  At the same time, my best
> hope is
> > that, pretentious, 
> >           goofy and ill-considered as they get now and
> > then, these stories 
> >           will still be of use with all their flaws
> intact,
> > as illustrative of 
> >           typical problems in entry-level fiction, and
> > cautionary about some 
> >           practices which younger writers might prefer
> to
> > avoid.
> >           Slow Learner page 4