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Goatboy's Reviews > Vineland
Vineland
by
by
Goatboy's review
bookshelves: re-read
Sep 20, 2014
bookshelves: re-read
Read 2 times. Last read December 29, 2022 to January 31, 2023.
I've been struggling with myself since finishing my recent re-read of this to come up with a review. Writing and mentally deleting. Every new version feeling more illiterate and clumsy. Let's just say that this raised itself to one of my favorite Pynchon's on heart alone. Anyone that calls this lesser Pynchon is missing the point. It is written exactly like this for a reason. In this case I believe form follows function. When in grad school for anthropology I had two advisors. One was a post-structuralist and the other a cognitive scientist. One said "there is no person." The other would laugh and be completely warm and present. Theory-wise they were both right. What I wanted to yell was, "It's both dammit!" Pynchon in GR went from a deterministic systems approach to reverse in VL to an inside out "why do they do this?" psychological approach. Both are present and true. What LEVEL are we looking at?! [To point to Sean Carroll's approach.] I think Pynchon would go on to perfect some melding of these two sides in Mason and Dixon and then even more perfectly with the Traverses (who are firmly in the family lineage in VL) in Against the Day. Why did the children of the 60s turn in the 80s? Why and how did ideals sell out and buy in to consumerism in the 80s? Pynchon is always looking for turning points in history. Where things could have gone differently. Where could we have turned right instead of wrong? Could we have become better people? Could we have beat the system that surrounds us? Why do we choose not to? To throw in with authoritarianism? How does irrational desire that we can't even understand beat us against our own best wishes? Is there a way out against us all becoming mere cogs and commodities enmeshed in The System? In Vineland, Pynchon begins to suss out an answer which will be examined further in Against the Day. It is social relationships it seems that is our only escape. The bonds that join us if believed in and held firm that might be the only answer to the white death of Capitalism.
Lesser Pynchon?
F*ck you.
Lesser Pynchon?
F*ck you.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
September 20, 2014
– Shelved
December 29, 2022
–
Started Reading
December 29, 2022
– Shelved as:
re-read
December 29, 2022
–
17.66%
"Decided (based on how much time I get between now and Sunday) to either end or start my year with a re-read of Vineland."
page
68
December 30, 2022
–
23.9%
"This novel is striking me as even more beautiful and incandescent than when I first read it all those years ago. Maybe it's been mentioned here before but to come across the fact that grandmother Sasha, mother Frenesi and daughter Prairie are all Traverse stock, the family line of Jess Traverse (from Against the Day) was shocking in all the best ways and makes so much sense."
page
92
January 2, 2023
–
49.87%
"Ooh... that last chapter was a doozy and might need to be re-read truth be told. On the surface just the story of good ol' DL and Takeshi with some slow death and a few Thanatoids thrown in, but my oh my what a twisted narrative that hops back and forth through time and through line until your brain feels just about as knotted as the story thus told. I got the main plot points but want to reengage for the nitty grit."
page
192
January 31, 2023
–
Finished Reading
YESYESYES