IVIV (1)

[rich]

Some say harsh satire but I don't really feel much of an edge to the
goings on in IV; it feels all so sorta pointless, hardly sad or
melancholic, profound or otherwolrdly which I think are Pynchon's
strengths in general--all of that makes up for his goofy streak which
is pretty much all we get in IV.
maybe it'll make a better made for cable movie: The Cute Meet of Coy and Hope

its almost like Pynchon is trying to explain what he's been up to all
these yrs as malcolm X would say "in a language we can all understand"

in a word, IV feels "unnecessary"

Rich

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Sad to say, I agree with most of this.  Still, I'm willing to spend time listening to other's opinions and teasing out what's worthwhile in the book.  Got nothing better to do.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>>Sent: Aug 18, 2009 7:30 PM
>>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>Subject: Re: IVIV (1) "She came along the alley and up the back steps ..."
>>
>>The book has some merit. Not much. For some odd reason Pynchon has
>>thrown out what he does well and kept what his does only average or
>>less than average. This is not the let down that VL was. It's far
>>worse. There is very little here to call this a work we should pass on
>>to other readers other than those that want to read a novel by Pynchon
>>and can't get through the other six. The style is ugly and difficult
>>to put up with. The language is so saturated with stupid and mundane
>>talk show F-word and groovy cool consumer crap and pop culture it
>>crowds out what little beauty Pynchon has invested in the work. Also,
>>the narrative choice makes all characters through Doc's POV flat. This
>>can not be avoided, but Pynchon takes some silly risks here by
>>introducing all these racial and ethnic types that are clearly not
>>69-70 types but later types that work well in buddy cop films and can
>>even cartoon it through in VL, but fall flat on their flat faces in
>>IV.
>>
>>
>>The opening gets the job done, almost. In fact, the Pizza Pipeline
>>scene, which has some of what we expect in a Pynchon novel, a whole
>>sick crew of bouncing voices around a pizza (the snips of dialogue
>>here are brilliant), is interrupted by the Shasta yearbook
>>characterization and the other tellings of character backgrounds and
>>fillings. It's not disjointed for a reason. It just is.
>
>