GUARDIAN PIECE ON 'VINELAND'

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 1, 2010, at 7:04 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Why would Guardian print this?

They Liked it?

> If it were a first reading of VL back
> when the book was issued it would still not merit a few lines in
> Guardian. What is the point of this?

	"Zoyd is a typically cartoonish Pynchon character, equal parts
	Homer Simpson and the Dude in The Big Lebowski, but unlike
	previous Pynchon protagonists, there's a depth and a sadness
	to him."

I think that's one of the points being made. Starting with Vineland,  
there's more recognizable human behavior in TRP's novels.
	
> . . . this reviewer can not even name the
> protagonist (Prairie not Zoyd)

That is a matter of opinion. Of course, the fact that sometimes there  
really aren't any protagonists in Pynchon's novels is very much the  
point.

> and seems determined to save a great
> ignored and mis-read cult classic from the fate of the  Dude, the
> dusty bottom Blockbuster shelves, by dismissing half of the book.

He's just saying that the book gets better on re-reading, which is  
most certainly true.

And this:

	His earlier novels, V, The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's
	Rainbow, were packed with clever facts and
	speculations about secret power networks and
	European colonialism and the American military-
	industrial complex. Vineland marked a maturing. Instead
	of a precocious cynicism about politics, Pynchon, now
	53, expressed anguish about America's trajectory from
	Nixon to Reagan: "the Repression went on, growing
	wider, deeper, and less visible, regardless of the names
	in power."

> Like, 9-11 was like a while ago and you should read Conrad's The
> secret Agent cause it's like a Hitchcock and stuff. Man, I mean, I'm
> the Dude, man, and like I finally finished re-reading VL and like,
> Guardian must be smokin the same shit as me cause like they are gonna
> print my shit, Man.

Conversely, by virtue of living in and around places described in the  
novel "Vineland", the author of this little essay tunes us onto low- 
level information casually tossed about TRP's novels, affording a  
deeper reading of an apparently shallow text.

> On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 6:43 AM, Roy Cross <roycross at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/31/thomas-pynchon-vineland-rereading