Not V, not even close, I suggest...

[Mark Kohut]

Exactly.

On Wed, Sep 30, 2026 at 4:25 AM Martin Dietze <
pynchon at the-little-red-haired-girl.org> wrote:

> The idea that Pynchon may not be overly fond of V. seems plausible. Like
> musicians, authors are often excessively self-critical when it comes to
> their early work. I, however, tend to prefer early works to later ones. I
> like the fact that they are often raw and unpolished.
>
> There may be things in “V." that we might find incoherent / but does that
> really matter? I’m also very fond of TCoL49, although as we know Pynchon
> expressed considerable dissatisfaction with that novel himself.
>
> On 30. September 2026 at 10:11:41, Mark Kohut (mark.kohut at gmail.com)
> wrote:
>
> V , because probably the first is the one I have reread least....I wonder
> what PYnchon thinks of it and thought of it when he critiqued
> his stories in SLOW LEARNER.   That he doesn't even talk about Mercy and
> Mortality is more than telling.....
>
> Tom and Melanie could surely have asked for and gotten a 50th
> Anniversary edition of V published--publishers love Anniversary editions
> and they are done at lesser anniversaries with lesser books (most are we
> might agree) ....just as there have been different editions of most of the
> others when necessary and wanted.....with some words about it from
> Tom?.....was this a silent statement....
>
> V used to be in The Modern Library--that is my second read copy---but it
> was defenestrated from there...with only circumstantial---two pieces
> of-bits of evidence, I believe Tom had never wanted it 'singled' out like
> that because he doesn't like such....I say this because Gravity's Rainbow
> was in the Random House catalog once to be reissued as an Everyman's
> edition. That never happened and this all happended between the time
> Candida Donadio was his agent then he fired her for Melanie Jackson....I
> think they made these two "singling outs' happen---remember TRP's theme of
> singling out, single lines etc...
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2026 at 3:33 AM Martin Dietze <
> pynchon at the-little-red-haired-girl.org> wrote:
>
>> I realise that this takes us slightly away from the original thread, but
>> I’d like to jump in on "V." - which happens to be one of my favourites in
>> P’s œuvre. I think I understand where you’re coming from, but I feel rather
>> differently about it (not that there’s necessarily a right or wrong here).
>>
>> "V." is undoubtedly bleak in its treatment of particular episodes of
>> history, and of the violence and dehumanisation that we encounter
>> throughout the book. But I don’t perceive the novel itself as mean. On the
>> contrary, there is a great deal of warmth in it, particularly in the
>> affection Pynchon shows for his characters.
>>
>> There is Profane, who probably embodies “meaninglessness” more than
>> anybody else, but whose passivity is nevertheless contrasted with his
>> deeply humane attitude towards his Puerto Rican hosts—and, of course,
>> towards Fina in particular.
>>
>> I see Stencil not only as a tragic figure, but also as a guide through
>> the novel’s historical strand.
>>
>> Pig Bodine forms a complete contrast to him: anarchic, completely
>> uninterested in Stencil's "spiritual" perspective. But with all this
>> crudeness he is one thing: alive.
>>
>> Even Father Fairing, the rat priest, is portrayed, for all the absurdity
>> surrounding him, with a surprising amount of sympathy.
>>
>> My absolute hero, however - and, for me, the central figure - is Paola.
>> Although she is a victim for much of the novel, there is a strength in her
>> that the others seem to lack, and by the end I get the sense that she may
>> actually find a way out of all this.
>>
>> If I had to sum up my response to "V.", I would say that I find it deeply
>> moving. Of course, this is a highly personal view - but then, what isn’t?
>>
>>
>> On 29. September 2026 at 18:30:44, Joseph Tracy via Pynchon-l (
>> pynchon-l at waste.org) wrote:
>>
>> Re: Not V, not even close, I suggest...
>>
>> > On Sep 29, 2026, at 5:46 AM, Mark Kohut < mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > JT: It often seems that Pynchon can imagine no alternative to the Dante
>> > plot
>> > but escape, or private contentment in marriage ( M&D, maybe BE, maybe
>> > ST, maybe V). Escape seems the most common ending, or in ATD escape
>> plus
>> > married contentment, or escape through renunciation/monasticism).
>> > Perhaps Cyprian Latewood is the closest to Dante's hero/self.
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>> You are probably right about V. Mostly everyone in V is, as I said, very
>> stuck in a hellish meaninglessness. There are glimmers of the possibility
>> of escape and there is Pig Bodine who seems perfectly happy in a life “of
>> sin” that should put him in Dante’s hell. So actually, I don’t know why I
>> listed V in that sentence. At this point V seems the darkest and meanest of
>> Pynchon novels. Similar to Dante’s hell but far less boring for me, more
>> revealing of how people get trapped in a stiflingly Profane worldview
>> rather than just observing their torturous misery.. It was my second P
>> novel after Vineland and I got fascinated with the structure that seemed,
>> as I tried to understand it, to spin around a DNA like pairing of the
>> earthy and subterranean, feminine and masculine, machine like power systems
>> and individual desires.
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>> mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com Open Copy
>