Any suggestions to make this a better quick plot summary for VL?

[David Morris]

Tell more about Marlon James.

I’ll soon be looking for my next read after I finish The Vorrh by Brian
Catling.  I’m halfway through Vorrh, and liking, but not loving it.  Once
in a long while I’ll read sci-fi or fantasy. Vorrh is fantasy with a smidge
of steam-punk. It’s narration syntax is sometimes what feels like Edwardian
and sometimes a colonized person’s naïveté or deeper obscurity.  The
central “character” is the Vorrh, a deepest, darkest forest, and its
relationship with its humans, of greater or lesser nativity to the forest.

So, what can you tell us about Marlon James?

David Morris

The Vorrh
https://www.amazon.com/Vorrh-Trilogy-Brian-Catling/dp/1101873787

On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 10:17 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> D--
>
> I think Vineland holds up better than IV and BE, if comparing the 'minor'
> works, though I don't really have any compulsion to ever read these 3
> again. Vineland resonated with me once, but not anymore.
>
> Folks were disappointed I guess to hear back from the man after 17 yrs
> with Vineland. but we know with M&D and AtD he caught up. and now it's been
> 15 years since a 'major' work as I see it.
>
> But I haven't been enamored of much current fiction anyways, except for
> Marlon James
>
> rich
>
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 5:11 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I really don’t like Vineland.  I tried to give it an honest second shot
>> many years ago here in a group read, and I concluded that it is my very
>> least favorite Pynchon novel, for many reasons.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 10:19 PM Michael Bailey <
>> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Just trying to give a sense of Vineland to a hypothetical friend or two
>> > with intelligence but minimal to no literary knowledge, wanting to hit
>> the
>> > high points
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 1) even among Pynchon fans it gets disrespected - I never understand why
>> > (-;
>> >
>> > 2) it starts out in 1984 with the forces of marijuana Prohibition
>> closing
>> > in on pothead Zoyd Wheeler, musician and welfare recipient but also
>> odd-job
>> > doer and gypsy roofer…anything to support his daughter and keep
>> building on
>> > to his home, which started as a small trailer but now has numerous
>> > additions
>> >
>> > 2a) Zoyd has made a deal with the villainous Brock Vond of the DEA to
>> let
>> > him keep his daughter Prairie, but he has to do something crazy every
>> year
>> > to keep collecting SSI so they know where he is, otherwise they will get
>> > Child Social Services to take away his daughter.
>> >
>> >
>> > 3) it flashes back and forth between 1968 and 1984
>> >
>> > 4) magical realism - a South American literary current, exemplified by
>> > Gabriel Garcia Marquez among others, which mixes a bit of fantasy into
>> an
>> > otherwise straightforward story
>> >
>> > Vineland has some magical realist elements:
>> >
>> >  - the Puncutron Machine, which automates acupuncture and is used in
>> Ninja
>> > nunnery, The Sisterhood of Kunoichi Attentives, to cure the character
>> > Takeshi of a kung fu deathblow inflicted upon him in error by DL, a lady
>> > Ninja. Her penance is to be his bodyguard for a year and a day. They
>> > eventually fall in love.
>> >
>> > - business cards that detect the presence of other business cards from
>> the
>> > same character (Takeshi) and play a little tune to alert the bearers
>> >
>> > - Takeshi’s business is Karmic Adjustment & he works with “Thanatoids”
>> who
>> > are probably ghosts, to reconcile them to the ills they suffered in life
>> >
>> > - a UFO tries to take over a jet flying to Hawaii, but the main
>> character,
>> > Zoyd, drives them off by playing a B flat on his keyboard. Among the
>> > passengers is Takeshi, who gratefully gives Zoyd one of his musical
>> > business cards
>> >
>> > - at one point, there’s a TransAm with a mirror finish, so it’s
>> effectively
>> > invisible
>> >
>> >
>> > 5) Star-crossed lovers - Zoyd, a musician, marries radical photographer
>> > Frenesi back in the 60s, but Frenesi is seduced violently by villainous
>> DEA
>> > agent Brock Vond and persuaded to betray her friends.
>> > Even after she does his bidding, Vond jails Frenesi, abusing the power
>> of
>> > the State, as is his won’t, in order to detain her and sedate her with
>> > psych meds.
>> >
>> > Frenesi escapes with the help of DL (the lady Ninja.)
>> >
>> > But Vond catches up with Frenesi - who can’t resist him, which is
>> perhaps
>> > due to a touch of battered woman syndrome, although according to this
>> book,
>> > at this juncture, villain Vond only uses vigorous sex and verbal abuse
>> > which are enough to keep her subservient - and he enlists her in his
>> > informer program, keeping her far away from her husband Zoyd and their
>> baby
>> > daughter Prairie. Zoyd has to be a single parent.
>> >
>> > 6) student rebellion - details of how in 1968, students briefly took
>> over
>> > the (fictional) College of the Surf in SoCal, and called it the People’s
>> > Republic of Rock and Roll (PR3)
>> >
>> > 7)  Prairie (teenage daughter of Frenesi and Zoyd) leaves home just as
>> the
>> > DEA is about to seize the house where Zoyd raised her. As she leaves, he
>> > gives her Takeshi’s business card to hold onto.
>> >
>> > At first, Prairie travels in the company of her boyfriend Isaiah 2:4
>> > (hippie parents named him after Bible verse about beating swords into
>> > plowshare) and his band, “Billy Barf and the Vomitones”
>> >
>> > — the band has a gig at a Mafia wedding.
>> > At the wedding, Prairie visits the restroom, where the old Takeshi
>> business
>> > card, that her dad Zoyd gave her, lets out a chime indicating the
>> > proximity of another such business card - and she meets DL.
>> >
>> > They spend some time at the Ninja Nunnery.
>> >
>> > DL introduces Prairie to old radical friends of her mother’s, Zippi and
>> > Ditzah Pisk, who give her access to computer files about the student
>> > takeover of the College of the Surf, the short-lived People’s Republic
>> of
>> > Rock and Roll, or “PR3”, and how her mom betrayed Weed Atman, one of the
>> > leaders of the PR3.
>> >
>> > Brock Vond’s DEA agents burn down Zippi and Ditzah Pisk’s house.
>> >
>> > The book winds up with Zoyd, Prairie, and Frenesi all going to a big
>> family
>> > reunion of several generations of radical unionists and lefties,
>> socialists
>> > of all stripes.
>> >
>> > Frenesi has remarried, not to DEA agent Brock Vond, but to Flash, one of
>> > her fellow informers.
>> >
>> > Zoyd accepts the situation, and has a beer with her new husband.
>> >
>> > Prairie goes off to unroll her sleeping bag in a secluded part of the
>> > woods. Villainous DEA agent Brock Vond tries to kidnap her, but just as
>> > he’s about to whisk her away, the Reagan Administration cuts his funding
>> > and he tries to drive away but ends up in the land of the Thanatoids.
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>