Thomas Pynchon exploits history for his own selfish ends

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          David Morris:
          No, no, no!  It's a literary catastrophe!  It's imperative 
          that were indefinitely "suspend" the P-list lest Western 
          Culture falls prey again to the next Dark Ages!

Everybody is entitled to My opinion, as you folks have already 
learned.

[Ahem . . . .]

A few obs here. I'm one of those rare souls who enjoyed Against 
the Day enough to have gone through it three times and I know 
I'll dip into it again. There's several points that seem to explain 
the weird mix of opinions concerning Pynchon's most recent book. 

First off, I see an alternation between "light" and "dark" novels by 
this author. V., Gravity's Rainbow & Mason & Dixon are dark, 
somewhat less comedic, somewhat more dramatic. It's not that 
the author isn't up to is usual tricks in these books, but because 
the overall tone of these books is more serious, critics tend to 
take them more seriously. The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland & 
Against the Day are more comic in tone, which does not prevent 
them from having "Serious" themes but at the same time they
haven't really been taken as seriously by the mainstream press
as the other three books. While it is true that CoL49 is extremely
paranoid, it is also true that the first three books are more
paranoid than the last three, as Pynchon's concern with character
and family in his later work is more comforting than the abandoned
characters in the first three [2 & 1/3?] novels. And The Crying of 
Lot 49 can be very silly at times.

The second point is that Against the Day is more overtly Leftist
than any other book by Pynchon. This has made a number of 
commentators throw up their hands. I've been dipping into Gravity's 
Rainbow this week [I've yet to get excited over Coetzee, sorry] and
realize that it is quite incredible and beautiful, but a close reading
displays a heavy leftist skew. The murk and internal dialogs
of GR might give the illusion that this book is more even-handed
in it's political opinions, but this writer's paranoia is a variety I've
witnessed from leftist activists for decades, first-hand.

Finally, the book was deliberately dumped on reviewers two weeks
before street date. I raced through the book in a fortnight, managing
to get my hands on a copy from the back room before it hit the 
front-of-store display. The experience was much like my first viewing 
of "Prospero's Books", an eventful sybaritic blur that appeared to lack 
a unifying theme. Then again, my first reading of GR was much like 
that as well. But re-reading is absolutely necessary to get any real
sense of the interconnection of the threads of the book and I can 
well imagine many [most, really] readers giving up well before 
finishing the book.

I do agree, however, that the songs suck. Can't have everything,
I guess. . . .