From a reader who blogs...Pynchon's Calm-Paranoid

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I don't think the paranoia in V, COL49 and GR was about the protagonists losing their cool or freaking out in some way.  It was an invitation to the reader to join Pynchon on a dark trip with no final destination.  The Calm-Paranoid of IV is the stuff of investigative journalism, a trip with regularly scheduled stops at Nixon, CIA, and the FBI.  There's the trademark Pynchon paranoia and connecting-the-dots, but its presented in a less emotional, less thought-provoking context.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

>
>This feels a bit of a sidenote and ever a total ramble, but I really enjoyed the new Pynchon novel and I keep reading articles that agree that it is at best Pynchon lite and at worst something like a nostalgia driven rehashing of the same old and such and such. Anyways, don't believe it. (These are def the same people who love Crying of Lot 49 - which my theory is that it isn't as wonderful as people say but it is the only thing short enough to teach in a typical college class and therefore the emblem of Pynchon for survey courses.) Instead, I think this novel is--yes--accessible, but isn't that a good thing? It seems to me that starting with Vineland he's been on a quest to develop a picture of what went wrong with any and every 20th century revolution. (And simultaneously of course resuscitate the value that might get lost in the picture of the overall failure.) In this particular novel, I think we see the emergence of a (the) calm-paranoid and this is
> maybe the closest glimpse at something more like what Pynchon might approve of. (Dude, way qualified sentence, I know.) The Calm-Paranoid is the same schlub from all the other Pynchon novels you love so dear, but now he never really loses the cool that is his strongest feature. EG he is aware of all the connections and following down their various lines of flight, but he isn't losing himself in the midst of it all (see Slothrop's dissolution). Maybe Benny Profane fits this profile too--tho he seems a bit too shlubbly in some sense, plus the novel being fractured between the two main characters (see also Mason & Dixon) so are the traits that make up the typical Pynchon character. End rant.