Meet the New Boss (Pynchon's THEY or The Firm is Dead)

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 27, 2010, at 7:28 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

>> Robin L: The "obvious" I was pointing to was Thomas Pynchon's use  
>> of marijuana . . .
>
> Why? The guy smoked pot. So what? He's not running for office, he's an
> artist. I see no reason why the P-list or any other group that has an
> interest in literature written by Pynchon should go boom when the pot
> burns.

When the group read for IV started up, some folks managed to provide  
all sorts of flack for that particular POV.

>> RL: Inherent Vice is a "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Stoner"  
>> and the Artist
>> in question happened to be writing "Gravity's Rainbow."
>
> Cool man, go at it. I never objected to this Larry is P writing GR
> because I'm part of some attempt to surpress the obvious fact  that
> dope is an important substance in P's works. I just don't agree that
> IV is a portrait of P in develpment or P writing GR.

Inherent Vice paints a remarkably accurate portrait of a certain  
lifestyle that flourished right up to the point where the tale begins  
in the novel. Plenty of meaningful historical references that point  
right back to GR.

>> RL: I find that the author wrote the best critique of "V." you  
>> could hope to
>> find in the intro to "Slow Learner." The dialog is weak. It's hard  
>> to be
>> concerned with the fate of any of the characters. It's weird and it's
>> different but it really doesn't add up to all that much.
>
> Could you connect these dots for me cause I don't read this in that
> Introduction. I mean the specifics you note above about V. not the
> general put down of his slow learning period.

I've probably read the intro to Slow Learner more than any other piece  
of writing by the author. One doesn't have to break down the twenty- 
something pages of the intro into its individual sub-components to  
figure out that the Younger Pynchon, the one the Older Pynchon's  not  
so sure he wants a drink with, was the one who wrote "V." He makes  
specific references to a bad ear for dialog, a tendency to not really  
getting all that involved in his "Characters", that whole Baedeker  
thing, the over-reliance on surrealism, a tendency to over- 
conceptualize for its own sake. It's all there in the intro, it all  
applies to "V."

I got a copy of "Education". It can't be as daunting as Esther's nose  
job.