Does Pynchon Produce Only 'Masterworks'?

[Carvill, John]

Heh. Sometimes I think it's my life's work to defend Vineland.

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3.  Vineland, I can't understand why anyone thinks this is a masterwork, and I've read it 3 times, twice w/ this list.  Way underdeveloped thematically, and not at all inventive structurally.
 
So for me, 1 (but hesitantly maybe 2) out of 6 as masterworks, and 1 or 2 others showing some genius.  I'll still read IV, but not with great expectations.
 
David Morris
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Well, I didn't place VL in the 'masterworks' category. But it does have those flashes of brilliance. What really strikes me about your comments, though, is your critique of Vineland's structure. I always thought it *was* interestingly, or at least *elegantly* structured - the nested narratives, and those bits (working from memory here) where a character is looking in the mirror and sees someone who looks like someone else (Prairie/DL/Frenesi) and the narrative seems to move through that mirror and out the other side, spools off into a differnet timeframe, then pops out somewhere else, etc. A-and, I always (still do, foax) thought the book was very cinematic, ripe for adaptation, even going so far as considering how it might work as a children's book, maybe a comic strip.... none of which bigs up its claims to 'genius' of course, but...

As Tricky would say, "Well, anyway".... I'm gald to be discussing Pynchon again, after yet another of my frequent self-exilings from the p-list.

GR as a marriage of V & COL49? Yeah, I can see that ok. And of course ATD is a mix of GR, COL49, V., VL, maybe just a dash of M&D...  Wonder how IV is gonna pan out? Dunno. But I can't wait. When I was reading ATD, I had to remove a load of torn strips of paper I kept sticking into it to mark notable passages. These, and the fact that the hardback (with the dustcover removed) was big and black, led my wife to warn me that "it looks as though you're carrying a Bible around with you..." which wasn't an image I cared to cultivate. But carry it around I certainly did. I remember parking the car and taking the train to work instead so I could spend anoyther hour with ATD. I remember phoning in an order for a take-away curry and going round the corner to collect it, bringing ATD with me so I could sit reading it for the few minutes I had to wait for my order to be ready. That, gentlemen, is the Power of Pynchon!

Cheers
J