P defends V. ...

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 30, 2010, at 7:31 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> Yikes, just plowed through way too many previously unread e-mails to  
> discover high levels of vituperativeness and threats and  
> encouragements of leave-taking from the group read.

Terri can come back any time he wants to.

Apparently Alice is dead.

> First of all, sorry, Joseph, I pushed the idea of an end-of-summer  
> break because it seemed voices were dwindling and some people had  
> fallen behind and needed catch-up time.

I needed it, thanks.

> Plus, the last week or so of summer has a tendency to lure people  
> away from their computers in favor of walks on the beach, the  
> dropping off of one's youngest at college (sob!), etc.  We start up  
> on the 6th with Chapter 6.

Looks like my first post on that subject is simultaneously premature  
and redundant.

> Second, I hope no one will be driven from the read (or leave of  
> their own volition) by the degenerating tone of what started out as  
> a discussion about P's attitude towards V.  Personally, I tend to  
> agree with Alice/Terrence's preference of V over IV.  On the other  
> hand, during the group read of IV, Robin certainly helped me see it  
> in a better light than I had during my first reading.

Please try to understand, I have been attempting to absorb "V." for  
FORTY years, I always felt that maybe I'm not smart enough to "get"  
"V." At least now I am understanding why it has been impossible for me  
to get into "that book," the very real possibility that the book is  
simply not engaging.

> I've always seen the SL Intro as an honest self-critique, with some  
> fishing-for-compliments motivation tossed in.  I disagree with P's  
> disparagement of COL49.  I love that book.  My daughter (20) just  
> read it and also loved it.

I don't think I have a muddled misreading of the SL intro. I believe  
that the author, by his expressed deliberate confusion and ambivalence  
over CoL49, acknowledges that something happened:

	 "this last story can be traced to ordinary nostalgia for this time
	in my life, for the writer who seemed then to be emerging, with
	his bad habits, dumb theories and occasional moments of
	productive silence in which he may have begun to get a
	glimpse of how it was done."

There's a few moments in CoL49 where the young author gives real  
glimpses of how it's done. During my last attempt at "V.", a few years  
ago, Mondaugen's Story gave me a few glimpses of how it's done. It's  
safe to say that Benny's re-emergence to the street strikes me as a  
fine example of how it's not done.

> It's got to be daunting for authors to lose control over their  
> published work, but that's the collateral damage of publishing.   
> Doris Lessing was incredibly pissed off that readers loved The  
> Golden Notebook for being a feminist tract, something she had had no  
> intention of writing.

I think Pynchon was pissed that he had come to the point where he  
needed to come up with quick writing for cash. Probably bruised his  
ego. At the same time, yes—the writer really does seem to be emerging,

I'm going to throw out a despicable theory—find a passive-voiced  
central figure in a Pynchon novel, look for echos of the author. Zoyd,  
Slothrop, Benny, Doc, Mucho Maas.

Somewhere in 1964, Young Tom really heard "She Loves You" for the  
first time. Musta been something in the water.

> I also like V, though there are many parts (specifically the Whole  
> Sick Crew) that I dislike.

Well, like Dixon said to Mason—"Amuse me."

> I like the audacity (Obama doesn't own that word)of the young  
> author's experiment, even if it partially, or even mostly failed.

For the most part, the use of language is crap. One of the reasons why  
I boiled over at Terri's slagging of Inherent Vice is that Pynchon's  
ear for the sounds of L.A. speak, improbably enough, is so accurate,  
so honed to the precise attributes of the creeping imbecility that was  
spreading like a fog upon L.A. It's true that a lot of the dialog was  
lifted from non-stop media outlets, echoed incessantly, but that's the  
point, isn't it? Whatever, the author has wonderful control over tone  
in his most recent novel, seems to have no control over tone in the  
first.

> Most of those reading the novel when it first came out must have  
> wanted to hear more from this voice.

I'm certain that in the context of 1963 it came out of left field.

In a way, JFK's assassination was the author's good-luck charm, much  
like for the Beatles. The timing was right, the American Left was  
ready for the great intellectual voice of vast paranoid systems and  
Pynchon provided those conspiratorial webs, even if he wasn't exactly  
on board with activities that might involve missing an episode of  
Gilligan's Island or two.

> The dialogue may have been weak, but there are still many fine  
> classic Pynchon passages sprinkled throughout the book.  It's  
> certainly worth an archaeological dig of a group read to find those  
> treasures.  Hope we can all (all of us!) reconvene on September 6th  
> to continue the pursuit.
>
> Laura

I'll be there, like it or not.