V-2: Re: BDSL, 1- Genetic Therapy for Inherent Vice

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Aw, Robin, I was looking forward to your historic (as opposed to American Lit.)focus on Chap. 9.  Don't forsake us!

V was my introduction to Pynchon, so it obviously works for some.  I was young at the time, and I think Young Pynchon is most attractive for the young and (relatively) unschooled.  What V offers for the young is a coolness quotient: gothic nose job, sewer alligator, clock-in-eyeball, Baedeker's spy thriller, social commentary about a less-known genocide, weird details about turn-of-the-century Egypt, wartime Malta, Italy, allografts, etc.  Those of us who've read GR and further can find a lot of this stuff undeveloped or puerile - it is - he does it all so much better later.  But this novel is the birth of Pynchon, and everything I love about the later Pynchon (well, I don't love ALL of the later Pynchon, but much or most of it) creeps into V.  It wowed me as a college kid who was too intimidated to dig into GR.

Speaking, though, of the downside of Pynchon, I'd say he hits about his lowest point (save ATD's "Reader, she bit him.")in Chapter V, Part II, with the depiction of Mafia.  It's a sickening, patronizing, deeply misogynist, frat-boy caricature of a woman writer who's edged too successfully into Big-Boy Writer territory.  Young Pynchon wonders if he should emulate the snide attitudes of Mailer and Roth.  Fortunately, the answer is NO!  He moves to California, leaves the NY literary crowd behind, and crafts Oedipa from Owlglass.

Laura 

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>Sent: Aug 18, 2010 10:14 AM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: V-2: Re: BDSL, 1- Genetic Therapy for Inherent Vice
>
>On Aug 18, 2010, at 7:05 AM, Carvill, John wrote:
>
>> << I don't like reading V., the dialog is embryonic, the set-ups are
>> tedious, the characters cardboard. The more I read V., the less I like
>> it. >>
>>
>> Well, there's a *lot* of great stuff in there. But 'V.' is a  
>> terrifically hard book to get into, at least it was for me,  
>> initially. I really had to force myself through it, first time  
>> round. I would never, under any circumstances, recommend it to  
>> anyone as their first Pynchon.
>
>As far as I can tell, I've read everything else by TRP. Most  
>everything else by Pynchon is so much easier  for me to read,  
>including CoL49.  I relished Inherent Vice, am still finding new  
>resonances and shades of meaning in that piece of crap.
>
>So obviously I don't know what I'm talking about.