Oriana's Reviews > Vineland
Vineland
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Oriana's review
bookshelves: phenomenal, read-2007
Mar 18, 2007
bookshelves: phenomenal, read-2007
Read 3 times. Last read November 1, 2007.
So when you think of Pynchon you think of serious work, right? And trudgery and difficulty and obfuscation and pedanticism, and like this dizzying thing that just makes you feel unintellectual and slow for never being able to catch up, right?
Well if that is the case, you have never read Vineland . Because oh. my. god. This book is so fucking good.
I'm not going to try to summarize or anything, because this book is too sprawling and reeling, and anyway that would be an afront to its amazingness. But look, it's got all the same basic building blocks as any Pynchon book鈥攁 million characters exhaustively historied, unfollowable plot twists, crazy ranting paranoia, incredibly phraseology, bizarre songs, sixties culture, sex and violence (in fact, large swaths are oddly comparable to Kill Bill, if you ask me)鈥攂ut it's done at a much...easier level somehow. It's much more accessible, it's hilarious and warm, and you don't feel like you're in quicksand the whole time, just desperately trying to understand and keep breathing.
See, people never talk about the really unimaginable joy that soars through Pynchon's work. And beauty! I mean look, this book is tough, for sure, and I won't try to claim that I understood everything, but honestly it just doesn't matter. It's just so much fun to read. It's not work at all.
And the ending! Once I had like thirty pages left I started getting that dark foreboding feeling, you know, like there's no way he can end this satisfactorily, there just isn't enough space. I was so sure he was going to do something horrible, leaving everything messy and unfulfilling, end things like right in the middle of a sentence or something, but no! The ending was beautiful, just like the rest of the book, totally satisfying and wonderful. Jeez I loved this book. Wow.
Well if that is the case, you have never read Vineland . Because oh. my. god. This book is so fucking good.
I'm not going to try to summarize or anything, because this book is too sprawling and reeling, and anyway that would be an afront to its amazingness. But look, it's got all the same basic building blocks as any Pynchon book鈥攁 million characters exhaustively historied, unfollowable plot twists, crazy ranting paranoia, incredibly phraseology, bizarre songs, sixties culture, sex and violence (in fact, large swaths are oddly comparable to Kill Bill, if you ask me)鈥攂ut it's done at a much...easier level somehow. It's much more accessible, it's hilarious and warm, and you don't feel like you're in quicksand the whole time, just desperately trying to understand and keep breathing.
See, people never talk about the really unimaginable joy that soars through Pynchon's work. And beauty! I mean look, this book is tough, for sure, and I won't try to claim that I understood everything, but honestly it just doesn't matter. It's just so much fun to read. It's not work at all.
And the ending! Once I had like thirty pages left I started getting that dark foreboding feeling, you know, like there's no way he can end this satisfactorily, there just isn't enough space. I was so sure he was going to do something horrible, leaving everything messy and unfulfilling, end things like right in the middle of a sentence or something, but no! The ending was beautiful, just like the rest of the book, totally satisfying and wonderful. Jeez I loved this book. Wow.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
Finished Reading
March 18, 2007
– Shelved
Started Reading
November 1, 2007
–
Finished Reading
November 13, 2007
– Shelved as:
phenomenal
November 15, 2007
– Shelved as:
read-2007
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Tosh
(last edited Aug 25, 2016 01:26PM)
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Oct 30, 2007 08:10AM

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Anyway, Vineland is just as fun as I remembered it. You should totally read it!








I didn't like Kill Bill(there are two references to it in reviews) all that much, but I like what was said by Oriana about it being warmer, easier and more fun.:-)Plus hilarious!Now those characteristics can make all the difference!
Btw, I never found reading Pynchon to be trudgery, or difficult. Yes, his plots and characters wind around themselves like an Escher print..but I never found them confusing..it's more like poetry.

