V-2 - Chapters 9/10 - Sferic Music, part two

[Robin Landseadel]

On Nov 7, 2010, at 7:57 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

>> Robin:
>> I suppose if I gave "V." as much attention as I've given to all of  
>> Pynchon's
>> other novels there would be more postings coming from these  
>> quarters. But
>> when I move back to the main body of "V." -- I consider Mondaugen's  
>> Story an
>> outgrowth that later metastasized -- the language flattens out,  
>> again. I'm
>> back on the street and I don't like it. The issue is the sheer  
>> quality of
>> writing. Diving into Gravity's Rainbow last night underscores how  
>> much the
>> author progressed from 1963 to 1973. The concepts might be in  
>> place, but the
>> language isn't.
>
> Why do you suppose the author produced only one GR-like chapter in his
> first novel? To argue that he progressed seems both obvious and a
> contradiction. If he could write all of V. in the style of Mondaugen,
> he elected not to. If he couldn't, perhaps because it took too long,
> perhaps because he didn't know that Mondaugen-style was vastly better
> than most of the other chapters, perhaps because he wrote Mondaugan
> last and had progressed to GR-like style but needed to get the book
> sold ...., perhaps, and TSI seems to confirm this conjecture, the
> author was still experimenting with styles or writing parodies of
> existing styles chapter by chapter then weaving them together ....

Of course by the time we get to Against the Day, he becomes a real  
whiz at parodies of other styles, including his own, both on the  
highest and the lowest level. This is what we all know of as "Growth"  
and "Development." I'm sure you understand this, not so sure Michiko  
Kakutani does. I also suspect that the rigors of tightening up the one  
section of the book closest to his heart was a tempering of his skill  
as an author -- he came out the other side with a recognizable voice  
among all his impersonations, probably worked himself into a  
Mondaugian fever in the process.

> There is no doubt that Mondaugen is better than any other chapter in
> V., and more GR-like in style, but there is also a concomitant change
> in the author's interests and his POV; for starters, he grows up. The
> V-novelist is a wet behind the ears anxious thief and show-off who
> satirizes what he can't understand

Don't know about you, but that really annoys me.

> and fakes it most of the time.
> Still, he has the gift, the intuition, the eye for Adams and for, Love
> in the Western World. That's where this chapter, people getting
> together is taken from .

I'm sure you're right. I haven't read Henry Adams, can't say that "V."  
makes me feel all that motivated to read "The Education of," not the  
way Gravity's Rainbow motivated me to get a Rider-Waite deck. I've  
also got "The Human Use of Human Beings" staring at me, along with  
dozens of other volumes awaiting my pleasure. Right now, I'm pulled  
back into Gravity's Rainbow, in part because I want to continue with  
Mondaugen's Story.