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

[Robin Landseadel]

Fab.

On Sep 27, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> 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.

And maybe even throw in a couple-two three jokes from time to time?

But, uh, yeah—great rant.