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

[David Morris]

>>> 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.
>>>RL:   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'm sure there's some truth to the SL - V connection, but I never take
Pynchon's self-criticism too seriously.  I think he only half means
what he's saying.  I agree that V is immature compared to GR, but
nothing P's written since GR comes close to GR.  And I take great
exception to your characterization of V as "It's weird and it's
different but it really doesn't add up to all that much."  As far as
I'm concerned, V is second only to GR in Pynchon oeuvre.

David Morris