Vineland

Rating:
Summary: His best book...really
Review: This book has always been shamefully underrated, and I've never been sure why. As Pynchon's first new published work after Gravity's Rainbow (not counting his intro to Slow Learner and letters to various Northern California local papers written under the pseudonym, Wanda Tinaski) it must have come as a shock. Where was the dazzling virtuosity? Where was GR's fascination with hidden conspiracies, inanimate processes and their ineluctable creep into and over human life?
But this book has nearly all the complexity of GR, just hidden in a narrative so perfectly crafted that you barely notice as it slides from time to time, place to place and most signigicantly, person to person. It is also a retelling of a set of Greek or other myths (especially in all the lands of the dead that characters must enter and re-emerge from) or a fable of the dream of American freedom - a dream much older than the hippies. And no less than GR, and perhaps more honestly, Vineland takes a very hard look at what it means to be free or not. It is in many ways an answer to GR, taking up it's concerns and treating them forthrightly. But instead of laying the blame on inanimate processes of technology, here Pynchon looks as what "actual" people do, conciously and unconciously, to create our world, and he is not afraid to lay the blame squarely on people who insist on attempting to control others, and finding hope in those who wish only to live their lives.
Which brings up the point of the whole book. Without question, Pynchon's strongest, truest characters live in Vineland and it is for them and them alone that it is written. In his intro to Slow Learner, Pynchon mentions how much more important good characters are than clever ideas, and I have to agree. There are no clever conceits (like GRs rocket) unifying this book, and that may disappoint some, but the characters are as alive as any in fiction.
It's true that to like this book, you already have to agree with Pychon's politics, more or less. But they aren't much different from what we're taught to believe America is supposed to be about; personal freedom and responsibility, melting pot, no aristocracy, level playing field, etc. etc. I bet there are some "conservatives", especially out west, who could get with this book. But eastern tighty-whitey types - forget it.
Most of all, Vineland is the book where Pynchon's big, sad, wise, loving heart is most to the fore, and this is why it's my favorive of his books. There were many hints of it in GR, and it lives on in the not-quite-as-succesful Mason & Dixon, but Vineland is where it shines. Such stuff may be too obvious to be chic, but to me it's as true and real as anything ever gets.

Rating:
Summary: Where they went when the record was over
Review: This book marks something of a stylistic step backward for Pynchon, I find it much more reminiscent of CRYING OF LOT 49 than say GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, but, hey, I LIKED CRYING... & I like this. There is the same combination of entertaining characters, impossible-but-weirdly-believable situations, and more than a hint of paranoia that keeps one turning the pages. Enthusiasts for the 1960's & the notion of "hippy purity" will probably be annoyed by Pynchon's cynicism, but I think at the heart of the book Pynchon is asking an important question about the whole notion of "meaning" in terms of how the Woodstock Generation could have been a prelude to Reagan/Bush rather than a real positive "revolution" in human relations. Unlike Gravity's Rainbow, most folks will find VINELAND a fast read with a clear begiining, middle & end & while it isn't the sort of break-through in style that earlier Pynchon represents, it is well worth a read. Hmm, I wondr. In some ways GRAVITY'S RAINBOW was an elaboration on V. and in the same senseVINELAND is an elaboration of LOT 49, so where does that put Mason & Dixon?