Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon, took me a long time to read, but not because I didn't like it or that it was boring. Actually, I've been trying to nail down the reason why...this is my second attempt at Pynchon, the first one being The Crying of Lot 49, a book that left me in the dust, an expression that in this case means, "I was left wondering, what just happened here? What was that all about?" However, Vineland is much easier to understand, but I still struggled a bit with it.

Vineland attempts to make sense out of the sixties, tries to put forth a different accounting than the history that was rewritten for us by the conservatives who later won control of the government. The characters are interesting ones, whose lives are the result of the way they got caught up with or reacted to The Revolution. Much of their lives are spent in a constant state of paranoia. Pynchon also makes many references to The Tube, since children of the sixties were the first to grow up sitting in front of televisions and so the first to have their opinions shaped by this medium. Actually, his television and popular music references are hilarious.

It was while I was reading Pynchon's funny lyrics and television allusions that it finally dawned on me why David Foster Wallace was compared to Pynchon--they both make maximum use of shared cultural experiences as a way to connect with their readers. Pynchon made up some funny, unlikely titles for programs, which is exactly what DFW did for Infinite Jest. In fact, DFW's movie list occupied a huge end-note section in the back of that book.

So, why is Pynchon so much harder for me to read? It's got to be his sentence construction, which I'm too groggy to explore right now, but I will. Later.

In 1990 saw the publication of Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon. The novel concerned the exploits and misadventures of burnt-out hippies, insane DEA agents, and a monomaniacal FBI agent, taking place in the Orwellian year 1984. It truly seemed that “the bums lost” and “would have to get a job, sir.”

After a long hiatus, following the award-winning Gravity’s Rainbow, Vineland seemed like a mere trifle, an afterthought and utterly inconsequential to the Pynchon Canon. This will attempt to dispel the stereotypical reactions that Vineland is Pynchon’s weakest work and critically unimportant.

For more, read my Critical Appraisal of this under-appreciated work:

http://driftlessareareview.wordpress.... ( )

Follows a group of hippies that become informants...and those that don't. Good book. ( )

Vineland is my second Pynchon novel, and it left me with mixed feelings. I loved the first 100 pages or so of this book, but I started losing interest as Pynchon started cycling through layer after layer of characters and story-in-story construction in an 62 page monster chapter. After that I never really completely reengaged in the story, but I still found a variety of things to like about it.

Reading Pynchon is often hard work, but hard work with a payoff that justifies the effort. I suspect that his books are ones that can be re-read several times, with new things clicking into place each time. He seems to be one of those authors who inspire strong reaction pro and con; I have to put myself squarely in the pro column. This is dense, funny, ambitious storytelling of the highest order leavened with generous portions of smart absurdity; even when it falls short it’s still a fun ride.

Vineland gives us lots of colorful characters, but seldom focuses on any one of them for long. My favorite was Zoyd, the aging drug-addled hippie who periodically has to convince Authority that he’s still crazy to continue to qualify for government handouts. To the extent that there is a single protagonist for the book, I suppose it’s got to be Frenesi, a tragic character whose motivations I never really understood (beyond the fact that authority figures turned her on in a big way). She is a character whom we primarily see through others’ eyes, especially in the first half of the book.

Vineland clearly is trying to say something about what’s happened to the US since Vietnam. Somehow it feels much scarier after eight years of the G.W. Bush administration than it would have felt previously (which is not to deny that Bush’s immediate predecessor seems to have thought primarily with the same part of his anatomy that drives this book’s villain’s actions).

I’ll definitely plan to read more by Pynchon. I suppose I should put Gravity’s Rainbow on the wishlist. ( )

'Kay, this was really boring, and annoying, and Thomas Pynchon, you are a very strange man. Bad book. Or at least a very dislikable one, in my mind. ( )