#44: Larry's Parents and Grandparents

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I think much of what's in the book is meant to be light satire.  Doc's parents are straight out of a bad sit-com.  Clueless parents show up at their hippie son's pad.  Before you know it, they're turning on.  Identical plot in Ang Lee's pleasant new film Taking Woodstock (though the parents are a little more dysfunctional).  I'm sure there are many other uses of this standard shtick throughout pop culture, though I can't think of any offhand.  Even suffered something like it myself back in high school in the '70s, when my parents and a friend's parents had themselves a cute little smoke-in.  Gawwwd!

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>Sent: Oct 4, 2009 11:55 PM

>
>my opinion is that Pynchon's strengths lay in the melancholic romantic
>longing for what history we've chosen for ourselves (interspersed w/
>alot of roadrunner zaniness)
>IV is all zany and the romantic longing is totally absent leaving much
>of the novel imho dull
>sure Doc's parents are nice but I never thought I'd equate anything
>Pynchon wrote with "niceness"
>imagine if GR was all Roger Jessica and how quickly tiresome that would get
>
>
>
>
>On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> I don't understand your problem with Elmina and Leo.   Homer and Marge are
>> pretty likable, too, in their own way - people have watched them for years.
>>    Somehow I can't see the portrayal of the Sportellos as being "the most
>> innovative experimentation of the author."    Leo and Elmina are a nice
>> touch - they're homey and it's satirized and it's okay with me.   They add a
>>  personal and human dimension to the character of Doc - he's more grounded
>> or something.   ("Hippies did not issue forth from the north side of trees"
>> - that sort of thing.)
>>
>> Bekah
>>
>>
>> On Oct 4, 2009, at 8:01 PM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>
>>> John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> While I think Elmina and Leo seem relatively likeable,
>>>
>>> Despite attack after attack on the traditional and conventional
>>> character in genre after genre ...despite the zapping of traditional
>>> and conventional plots, settings, themes, moods, tones, narratives ...
>>> readers continue to Stencilize with remarkably conservative
>>> expectations the most innovative experimentation of the author.
>>>
>>> The novel is not all that interesting and it's prose style is flat
>>> and, for most of the read, ugly. Yet, there are reasons to analyze it.
>>> Fitting it to conventional or traditional modes is not one.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>