That four's more of a 4.5, and I've toyed with the idea of kicking it up to the full five, because here's a book that's really resonated with me. See, I used to live like the Whole Sick Crew. If you've read this book, you know what I mean. If you haven't, imagine this: going from a low-wage job straight to the home of the guy with the weed, staying up until absurd hours partying, reading the beatniks and Palahniuk for the sake of looking like some sort of countercultural badass, and discussing works of art you can never dream of finishing. Anywhere between five and nine of us used to do this five to six nights out of the week, before it all fell apart. And believe me, the collapse was violent and dramatic: I slipped out just before things allegedly got ugly.

I read this book just as I was starting to break with my real-life Whole Sick Crew, and oh was I feeling what Benny Profane felt.

The chapters that follow Benny are populated by lost souls. No one you'd call bad (which is more than I can say for the real-life Sick Crew I ran with - once you've settled down from the wine, you realize you've been staring manipulative folks, paranoids with rage problems, and malignant narcissists in the face for a while), but plenty of irresponsible, petty, shallow, immature sorts. The priceless essay that kicks off Pynchon's later short story collection Slow Learner says that this novel was intended to savage the beatniks, whom Pynchon perceived as immature, and as far as I'm concerned, he hits his targets dead on.

The second strand of V. follows a man named Stencil, seeking a mysterious entity (or, perhaps, mysterious region) known as V. If Pynchon the satirist, the Pynchon behind The Crying of Lot 49 and so forth, was born in Profane's chapters, the Pynchon of Gravity's Rainbow - he of the impossible quests, mind-bending conspiracies, and genre crossbreeding - was born here. Readers of the Benny Profane (and his associates, such as the recurring Pig Bodine) should expect biting satire and strong characters; readers of the Stencil chapters should expect a grand, multigenerational, occasionally confusing adventure full of romantics, reenacted historical events, assassinations, political intrigue, and swashbuckling.

Either way, you're guaranteed a terrific read with V. Since it's Pynchon's first novel and features many of Pynchon's favorite tropes, it's not a bad place to start with the guy by any means. It doesn't always read like Pynchon, being more lucid than usual, but that might help people who otherwise find him impenetrable get into him. V. still isn't your average novel, and it wasn't written by your average novelist. For me, that makes it even more of a thrill to read. It helps that I've been there, of course.

Benny Profane has nothing to lose. Herbert Stencil has someone or something to find (V.). This is the story of how they get on. Maybe.

Earlier this year, I re-read A Visit from the Goon Squad. I was struck on this re-read of V. by the similarity in structure/approach in these two novels. Both could be considered as a series of inter-linked short stories that jump around in time and gradually fit together to form an overall story. Of course, being Pynchon, this one is a bit more complicated than that and spreads its net much wider in terms of ideas, philosophies, science, cultural references and, yes, jokes.

I seriously believe that people who "get lost" in Pynchon novels are probably trying too hard. Or maybe that’s just my way out. Yes, the writing is dense and complicated. Yes, the cultural references are too many and too widespread for normal people to cope with all of them. But I am not sure that's the point. If you read and re-read passages in an effort to fully understand them, you are forgetting that often the explanation will not come for another 50 pages! If you try to make the chapters flow into a consistent narrative and plot, you are forgetting that in most Pynchon books the plot gets cut up into little pieces and then re-assembled in a seemingly random order. The best approach is, I think, to read and keep reading without worrying too much about the understanding: it will either come or it won’t and I’m not sure it matters which.

Much has been written about the V that is apparent in the structure of this book as Profane's and Stencil's stories gradually converge and then meet. It's a satisfying thought, but it does neglect the fact that their paths cross several times as the book progresses. Don't forget that, at one point Profane takes a pot-shot at what he thinks is an alligator in the New York sewers and the next thing we know is that Stencil is picking shot pellets out of his backside. For example.

But it is true that Profane and Stencil end up together as the story draws to a close. I’m confident that I missed a lot as I read this. But I also enjoyed the whole reading experience. I’m not that hung up about “understanding” Pynchon: I simply enjoy the writing and let the story flow - what sticks, sticks and what doesn’t doesn’t. That’s fine by me.

You either love or hate Pynchon. I’m not sure there’s a middle ground, a “take him or leave him” approach. I am firmly in the former camp: I’ve read all of his novels and I am working my way through them again (very slowly). This, his first novel, is a good indication of things to come. Some of his novels are more accessible. Some less. Some have more plot. Some less. It is staggering to think that this book could come from a 26-year-old.

The search for the identity of V is the primary question in this masterwork from Pynchon. It is funny and tragic and crazy and totally Pynchon. I honestly cannot remember everything this book - it does not stick in my memory as much as Mason&Dixon, Gravity's Rainbow or Against the Day. I mean, I loved the pleasure of reading it. But months later, I remember just the story of the genocide in Africa and some other snapshots but overall the image remains vague. Perhaps I read too much Pynchon in too short a time? I definitely will need to reread this one again.

Fino's Pynchon Reviews:
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I propose that the titular "V." is neither a person nor a place but a preposition.

What, really, is more personal than a first novel? It's that all-or-nothing, balls-to-the-wall debut effort that can either send a fledgling writer plummeting to dream-shattering depths with an effort that falls flat for any number of reasons or it can be the inaugural celebration all starry-eyed young scribes dare to hope for, that which heralds a staggering new talent to a canon populated by the many great wordslingers who've scribbled their way to well-deserved immortality. (For argument's sake, we'll work under the assumption that those flimsy flavor-of-the-month bestsellers that are so in vogue for their seemingly eternal 15 minutes will, in time, be forgotten and written off as yet another regrettable mistake born of groupthink's lapse in judgment while these truly remarkable feats of literature persist through the ages.)

If one is to write what one knows, how daunting must it be to know so much about such a wide range of complicated topics -- minute historical details of a time one either never experienced or was simply too young to fully digest, regardless of youthful precociousness; engineering equations requiring mathematical acrobatics and a more than adequate grasp on physics; an insider's take on the naval experience; an innate understanding of how to perfectly mix high-minded concepts and lowbrow humor with a dash of poetic lyric -- and attempt to whittle it all down into a tome that won't crush potential readers under the weight of both the volume itself and the awe-inspiring ideas roiling within?

The little we do know about literature's most elusive enigma points to pieces of Pynchon being flung along the narrative's parade route like confetti, adding flashes of biographical color to his intricately structured and beautifully written first novel that pits the animate against the inanimate and the internal self against the external veneer (and has the best-ever bonus of an Ayn Rand stand-in reduced to baby-talk in the presence of a pwecious widdle kittums-cat?). Aside from what can only be thinly veiled allusions to his Cornell days with Richard Fariña and their cult of Warlock -- regarding the Generation of '37: "And we did like to use Elizabethan phrases in our speech"; "A farewell celebration for Maratt on the eve of his marriage"; "Dnubietna leapt up on the table, upsetting glasses, knocking the bottle to the floor, screaming "Go to, caitiff!" It became the cant phrase for our "set": go to."; "The pre-war University years were probably as happy as he described, and the conservation as "good."", to say nothing of the nod to a novel called Existential Sheriff -- the internal conflicts of the writer seem to be scattered throughout V. like a breadcrumb trail back to the source himself.

Because Pynchon has be one conflicted dude. To be a notoriously private man juggling such derision for the spotlight with the compulsion to write for unseen but rabid fans, to churn out maddeningly, densely obscure works that are nevertheless guaranteed to meet both critical and commercial success (and increase sales of Excedrin in the following months), to posses such finely tuned right and left brains that he can be considered nothing less than an engineer-poet in his own right, to walk such a fine line between historical fictions and fictional histories -- is it any wonder that a man so in touch with dueling perspectives would build his first novel on the foundation of This n  v.n That?

Video-review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prMAv...
Featured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2017

A puzzling but glorious read that is, paradoxically enough, both breath-taking fast and extremely broody, thrilling and self-absorbed. It will require quite a lot of dedication to be fully enjoyed.

Here are some thoughts I have on the Thomas Pynchon book "V." here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...

Il bello di leggere Pynchon è leggerlo.
A prescindere dalle aspettative, anzi meglio non averne, a prescindere dal significato che il testo può avere realmente. Del resto leggere è la capacità di un lettore di entrare in un mondo attraversandolo e facendosi attraversare. Con Pynchon l'esperienza è proprio quella di entrare in un mondo fatto di sottomondi, ricco di personaggi variegati, strani, assurdi ma totalmente credibili, perché lo stile di Pynchon è credibile e perfettamente aderente alla realtà che racconta. Non importa che l'uomo più desiderato sia descritto come uno spiantato con il corpo a pera, un mezzo ebreo buono a nulla, uno schlemihl, uno sciocco sfortunato senza grande volontà: Profane sarà per sempre l'uomo di cui tutte le donne si innamoreranno.
Tutti i personaggi di Pynchon sono stereotipi de-stereotipizzati.
Le donne sono sessualmente attive, disponibili e decisamente volitive.
I marinai sono ubriaconi capaci di innamorarsi davvero.
Gli amici sono unito nel delirio e nel dolore.
Non mi importa la storia di V.
È il secondo romanzo che leggo di P. Il primo è stato L'arcobaleno della gravità. Numerose le similitudini tra i due. Sono entrambi romanzi storici. Sono entrambi una sorta di odissea moderna. Si muovono su piani temporali diversi, arretrando e avanzando lungo la linea del tempo.
Entrambi i libri sono in diverse parti decisamente beat: la strada, l'alcol, la droga, il sesso libero e anestetizzante, una certa visione del mondo un po' decadente e autodistruttiva di parecchi personaggi. Non manca anche qui la critica al colonialismo, alle crociate, la grande guerra, la prima il V. La seconda ne l'arcobaleno.
Non manca l'Europa, il riferimento al popolo ebraico, all'Italia, all'Inghilterra, agli USA dall'altra parte dell'oceano che gli inglesi hanno fondato e gli italiani e gli ebrei hanno popolato (insieme agli africani).
Lo stile di Pynchon è di Pynchon.
Lirismo, realismo, assurdo, ironia (la scelta dei nomi è esilarante e credo sia interessante per gli studiosi di Pynchon studiarne origini e significati).
Mi piace la grande conoscenza che l'autore propone nei suoi romanzi. L'intersse per culture diverse, qui trovo anche un cenno di Orientalismo.
Alla fine non saprei dirvi perché piace leggere Pynchon né perché va letto.
Posso solo dire che mi piace tuffarmi nei suoi libri belli corposi.
Ma quanto scrive?
E poi ho la fortuna di avere un prof. di Pynchon, anzi due, che mi danno un sacco di dritte.

Είναι το δεύτερο βιβλίο του Thomas Pynchon που περνάει στη λίστα με τα διαβασμένα, ύστερα από το πάρα μα πάρα πολύ καλό Βάινλαντ, που διάβασα τις πρώτες μέρες του Ιανουαρίου. Τι να πω; Πρόκειται για ένα δύσκολο βιβλίο, το δυσκολότερο που έχω διαβάσει, δυσκολότερο και από το Βάινλαντ.

Μέσα στις 664 σελίδες, περνάνε πολλοί χαρακτήρες, οι οποίοι δεν είναι συνηθισμένοι άνθρωποι, και οι οποίοι την μια στιγμή εμφανίζονται, την αμέσως επόμενη εξαφανίζονται, και μετά εμφανίζονται ξανά ύστερα από πενήντα, εκατό, διακόσιες σελίδες, αλλά μπορεί και να μην εμφανίζονται ξανά. Οι χαρακτήρες; Ναύτες, κατάσκοποι, αστυνομικοί, πλαστικοί χειρουργοί, οδοντίατροι-ψυχίατροι, επαναστάτες, φιλόσοφοι, καλλιτέχνες, άλλοι ζωγράφοι και άλλοι τραγουδιστές ή ηθοποιοί, ιερωμένοι, γυναίκες, πολλές γυναίκες, άλλες μοιραίες, άλλες όχι, όλες ερωτευμένες και μοναδικές, ποντίκια θεοσεβούμενα και αλιγάτορες.

Και ανάμεσα σε όλους αυτούς, δυο κύριοι χαρακτήρες. Ο Μπένι Προφέιν, ένας κακομοίρης Σλεμίελ(Εβραίος που δεν τα πάει καλά με τα άψυχα αντικείμενα), και ένας Άγγλος τυχοδιώκτης, ο Χέρμπερτ Στένσιλ, που προσπαθεί να βρει τι στο διάολο είναι η V. Είναι γυναίκα, ή είναι απλά μια ιδέα; Πάντως, ό,τι και να είναι, είναι "μπλεγμένη" σε εξεγέρσεις, πολιορκίες και επαναστάσεις. Και μπορεί, ουσιαστικά, να κρύβεται πίσω από κάθε βίαιη πολιτική κρίση στο πρώτο μισό του 20ου αιώνα. Η γενική υπόθεση είναι αυτή. Το κυνήγι της V.

Αλλά μέσα στο βιβλίο, υπάρχουν πολλές ιστορίες που μπορεί να συνδέονται άμεσα μεταξύ τους, μπορεί και όχι. Και μερικές φορές είναι δύσκολο να βρεις τους συνδετικούς κρίκους. Ο πανέξυπνος Pynchon μας μεταφέρει στην Αίγυπτο που βρίσκεται υπό αγγλική κατοχή. Στην Νότια Αφρική όπου επικρατούν οι Γερμανοί. Σε μια κλίκα καλλιτεχνών στην Νέα Υόρκη. Στους υπονόμους της Νέας Υόρκης, όπου ο Μπένι Προφέιν κυνηγά αλιγάτορες. Στην Μάλτα και σε ένα δωμάτιο όπου κάποιος γράφει εξομολογήσεις. Στην Ιταλία, και σε διάφορες επαναστατικές κινήσεις. Σε πλοία του αμερικάνικου πολεμικού ναυτικού. Σε μπαρ με περίεργα ονόματα, όπως π.χ. Σκουριασμένο Κουτάλι ή Τάφος. Μία είσαι στο παρόν, στο 1956, και μια είσαι στο παρελθόν. Δέκα χρόνια πριν το 1956, είκοσι, τριάντα, σαράντα... Οι πολλοί χαρακτήρες του βιβλίου, εμφανίζονται σε όλες τις ιστορίες, σε μερικές ή μόνο σε μια. Μέσα σε όλο αυτό το Χάος, ο Στένσιλ προσπαθεί να βρει τη V., που αναφέρεται στα ημερολόγια του κατασκόπου πατέρα του.

Οι ιστορίες μέσα στο βιβλίο μιλάνε για την πολιτική, την ιστορία, τις κυβερνητικές μηχανορραφίες και τον κόσμο των κατασκόπων, για τις επαναστάσεις, για το καλό και το κακό, για την θρησκεία, για τον έρωτα, την αγάπη και το μίσος. Μερικές από αυτές μπορούν να σταθούν και σαν μικρές νουβέλες ή μεγάλα διηγήματα. Αλλά, απ'όσο κατάλαβα, όλες, λίγο-πολύ, συνδέονται. Η γραφή δεν θα μπορούσε να μην είναι τέλεια, και η μετάφραση είναι πάρα πολύ καλή και προσεγμένη.

Thomas Pynchon is supposed to be a premier American author. When deciding which book of his to read first, I took some advice from a reviewer and picked up V. V. is Pynchon's first novel, and according to the reviewer, it is shorter and easier than his most famous book, Gravity's Rainbow. Taking this into consideration, it was an ominous sign when I lifted V. from the library shelf to find it so thick. Clocking in at 547 pages, I knew I had a wordpuker on my hands.

Then we get to the names. The names are diabolical in their stupidity. Benny Profane. Oh, cuz he is kinda profane, right? Lame. Horrible name. Rachel Owlglass? What is this, Harry Potter? Not going to take her seriously. Then the crown jewel: Bongo-Shaftsburry. All of these names are supposed to be hilarious but the joke feels like it is on me for reading this book in the first place. The absurdity of this novel made it a failure; if none of this has a point or it is all supposed to be a parody it simply does not have to be so painfully long. The way every digression, every ADD tangent is indulged is the literary equivalent of jacking off and Pynchon is a nymphomaniac.

Non-plot related rambling can be enjoyable (Savage Detectives), but Pynchon's pointless backstories and tedious explanations were aggravating. If you find his brand of prolix humor funny, then maybe you won't mind so much. I didn't laugh the whole time, despite feeling like the book wanted me to. The stream of consciousness and flashback/flashforward shifts destroyed momentum, the pseudo-spy capers were like a bad soap opera and the characters in general never inspired anything but sighs of frustration.

Sarcasm and parody in general work well when delivered quickly. This book is a 547 page joke without a punchline. Get it?

a story split in two, converging to a sharp, crisp point. one story, that of a group of go-nowheres, is fun and light, and probably a more accurate and unforgiving portrait of the beats than is present in their own work. the other alternating half are Stencil's tales of potentialities and impressions concerning espionage in various exotic locales earlier in the century, all tied around the enigma of the entity V.

At one point in V., one of Pynchon's characters is pontificating on his Beat Generation ennui, and decides that the best tact in life is to "Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it; keep cool but care." Much of this novel seems to be about Pynchon's post-college struggle to find a way of living— some middle road between existential despair and the Romantic path of old. Both of the narratives involve groups of people struggling to find meaning against the backdrop of perilous moments in history. This struggle mainly manifests as endless bouts of drinking and fornicating, and ponderous pseudo-intellectual conversations about whether life is worth living.

Whether you like or hate his style, you can't deny Pynchon is a great writer. His descriptions of places, and his embodiments of characters, are the work of a singular, almost preternaturally prodigal genius. But whether by intention or mistake, he has trouble organizing his plots, and often this book seems like a heavily embroidered set of short stories hanging off a pretty thin connective narrative. If you're just out of college and struggling with the big existential questions (what kind of life is worth living? is there Destiny, or is it all chance? does anything really matter?), and you're an above average-reader with some time on your hands, you'll enjoy this book. But if you're into your middle years, you might feel like Pynchon is just trying a little bit too hard.

I told a friend of mine recently that I was re-reading V for the first time in almost twenty years and he quipped, "That is one of those books that seems really cool when you're in high school and you 'discover' it, but it's actually not very good." Sadly true. As an admirer of Pynchy's shit over the years, I have often been confounded by the harshness directed at him and the opposing tidal wave of praise for him as a stupid 'postmodern' author. He isn't. His works are densely packed, poetic codes, hilarious, bawdy, and not really like anything else. At least, that's what I used to think. Re-reading this, I discovered that V, his first novel, mind you, is actually kind of terrible. The characters are virtually nothing, it isn't particularly amusing, and the overarching plot, the search for whoever/whatever V might be is very, very unsatisfying. There are a few moments that shine, and Pig Bodine appears here for the first time. No Gravity's Rainbow, however.