Ch 6 of V-2 Eeeeeeraaaaah, wutsupdoc?

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 28, 2010, at 5:37 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> Arguing over Pynchon's dialog is fun if you like brilliant reparte  
> like "you don't know shit... maybe you should sut up"  and "I really  
> would like for you to just go away",

Sorry, let my manners slip.

> I too might be inclined to sut up , once revealed as the literary  
> mountebank I truly am, but I'm wondering if anyone was planning to  
> risk a few remarks on ch 6.  To weigh in on the controversy I think  
> Pynchon's ear has gotten rather good ( In ways Robin illumintes well)

Thanks.

> and I think V is  weaker than later writing in several ways,  
> including dialog.

I think that's the single element I find the most off-putting. It just  
sounds wrong.

> But I think this is a powerful first novel with  an unusual and  
> perhaps unprecedented structure;

I really haven't been able to get to that level yet, I can sense that  
there's some great ideas here, but the grid has yet to light up—the  
language is just too much of a turn-off.

I'll be paying a bit more attention from here on out, have already  
overshot chapter 6 into some Italian heist movie badly dubbed into  
English.

> it also has a largeness of vision carried by some beautifully  
> written passages and a quirky humor that signals a unique voice.  I  
> sense we are failing as a critical body to consider the ways Pynchon  
> in V is marking out his own territory and  perhaps even reshaping  
> the possibilities of fiction.

And more power to you for that. As I'm not fond of the book, can't say  
I'll be in on your campaign.

> Accustomed to a more fluent and  dramatically engaging writer we are  
> failing to see the formal daring-do of the Pynchon who wrote V.

I'm not holding anyone back from their hosannas by lodging a few  
complaints?

It's simply that "V." seems to be Canonized but Against the Day covers  
a lot of the same territory with much better effect and is nowhere  
near the critical darling that "V." turned out to be.

There's a number of scenes in "Against the Day" that seem to be  
included so Pynchon could fix some of the bad literary karma in "V."— 
seems like the ole' dopesmoker was using the time machine to fix plot  
holes in old novels. At least that's what Professor Farnsworth told me.

> I think part of that disengagement  is the failure of the Benny  
> Profane story. He just keeps insistently yo yoing , which, in a  
> second read  begins to feel like doing nothing( interestng that  one  
> Pynchon's rare essays is about sloth). Still, even Benny becomes  a  
> door into some interesting terrain, and subterrain.

Like you said concerning Benny Profane—his story is just a trifle  
cyclical? Static perhaps? Like nuthin' doin' nuthin'?