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

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 27, 2010, at 1:04 PM, David Morris wrote:

>>>> 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

Take all the exception you like, there's things I really love in  
Pynchon's writing that don't really start flourishing until Vineland,  
dialog in particular.

"Self-criticism's an amazing technique, it shouldn't work but it does."