Pynchon's cast of misfits and eccentrics takes us on a crisscross journey through California. The period of activity mostly takes place during the Nixon and Reagan presidencies. 1984 looms large as Pynchon wonders if Orwell is on target.

Our guides include a petty drug-dealer wanna-be rock star, an obsessed DEA agent, a ninja femme fatale, and a counter-culture hippie chick. A love triangle forms between Frenesi, the hippie chick, Brock Vond, the DEA agent, and Zoyd, the wanna-be rock star. Frenesi dumps Brock and goes with Zoyd. They have a daughter named Prairie. Brock uses his authority to frame and separate Frenesi and Zoyd, leaving Prairie without a mother.

The year is 1984. Prairie is a young teen. She has been brought up by Zoyd and sometimes her grandmother on her mom's side, Sasha. Zoyd, Prairie and Sasha have been searching for Frenesi for years but are one step behind as Brock continues to throw interference and antagonize Zoyd.

Pynchon being Pynchon, the characters are extreme and live on the fringes of society. Drugs, antigovernment activity, illicit sex underground and separatists societies are explored. It is a colorful and curious group with depictions of scenes outside of conventional American life.

Pynchon's characters take the spotlight as they are introduced. He takes the reader through a brief history and background of their lives. He then dives into a vivid scene featuring the character.

The world of Pynchon is intriguing. How much he has lived and how much is imagination? Never boring, circuitous and cerebral, Pynchon is an original.

Reread...I usually don't mark rereads, but this I had to. I first read it last year and rated it 3 stars. I could't remember much from it, and Pynchon always deserves a second go...and boy am I glad I did. This read was easily one the best experiences I've had reading. I'm in lockdown and this just took me out of it...it's a fucking blast and pure genius.

5th book of 2022.

2.5. I'm almost with ol' H. Bloom on this one [1], but not quite so violently. I didn't find it brilliant, and it's a shame as I was expecting to be in the Vineland-defence crowd, who support it against the claims that it's weak compared to his bigger and more literary giants. Pynchon once cited Kerouac as a big influence and I'm a fan too and I definitely felt his ghost within elements of this novel. It's a rollicking romp of 1984 America off the back of the 60s and its counterculture, set in Vineland, California (the only US state I've been to myself). Without the sort of 'literariness' of Gravity's Rainbow (which came some 17 years prior to this) it's a mad Pynchonland fest that didn't seem entirely worth it for the silliness and the work. It's filled, as ever, with strange characters with strange names, Zoyd Wheeler being our main guy, it's filled with Star Trek references [2] for some reason, ninjas, cops, and altogether is known as a blend of daytime drama, political thriller, Kung Fu movie [3] [4] and typical Pynchon paranoia. I liked elements of the plot and really didn't care for others, it felt quite long even at just 'Pynchon-lite' size of 400-ish pages and some of the digressions were boredom inducing. The overarching theme of the novel, which is, I think, family, as well as the state of America, was great but only in the end did it really start to emerge and everything got wrapped up too nicely and almost pathetically for me to care. Pynchon did leave me shutting the book with a sweet feeling in my stomach, having written a wonderful final line. Bits were funny but generally I don't think I found it as funny as T.R.P. imagined it would be, but then again, I already knew from previous reads, him and I have a very different sense of humour. It's taken me a while to read this, a bit every day without really trying too hard to get to the end, and I'm glad it's done. Hoping to read some of the bigger ones of his this year or next. Bloom was a little bit harsh, but he's not entirely wrong. It's meant to be fun and I wonder if it should be considered much more than that, maybe not. Anyway, I just didn't have fun.
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[1] 'Our most distinguished living writer of narrative fiction—I don't think you would quite call him a novelist—is Thomas Pynchon, and yet that recent book Vineland was a total disaster. In fact, I cannot think of a comparable disaster in modern American fiction. To have written the great story of Byron the lightbulb in Gravity's Rainbow, to have written The Crying of Lot 49 and then to give us this piece of sheer ineptitude, this hopelessly hollow book that I read through in amazement and disbelief, and which has not got in it a redeeming sentence, hardly a redeeming phrase, is immensely disheartening.'
—The Paris Review interview.

[2] Rilly.

[3] Rilly? Rilly.

[4] You'd think that would sell it for me, my job being a Wing Chun Kung Fu instructor for a school and having, this year, opened my own school with a friend, but really the Kung Fu Pynchon is talking about is the sort of Kung Fu that gives Kung Fu the reputation of being 'fake' or even 'not real'. Recently answering someone what I did for work, they paused and said, "Wait, Kung Fu is real? I thought it was made-up for movies!"

è come provare, leggendo, l’effetto di una sbornia di tetris (nella vita 1 fui nel tunnel, so di cosa parlo). ci sono un mucchio di forme colorate che piovono dall’alto, e istintivamente cerchi di far quadrare tutto: nuovi personaggi, riferimenti, sottoplot, collegamenti.
solo che a differenza del giochetto inventato dai russi, mano a mano che procedi, a galvanizzarti non è il meccanismo di gratificazione-da-illusione-di-controllo che gli psicologi chiamano effetto zeigarnik (e chi fosse il signor zeigarnik mi guardo bene dal chiederlo) bensì il suo opposto. cioè la resa incondizionata all’invenzione e alla pirotecnica dell’autore, e al tipo di critica che le alimenta.
conta godersi lo spettacolo, insomma, che pynchon infarcisce di simboli da pop culture sporcati di riflessioni da esegeta del declino americano, o viceversa. ci si lascia travolgere dal beato effetto di spaesamento lisergico, sedurre dalla prosa, coinvolgere dal riconoscimento di quel che di vero c’è dietro ogni sparata sugli ideali infrantisi nel decennio reaganiano.
non so se anche pynchon alla lunga provochi un ispessimento della corteccia nei lobi frontali, e un ampliamento delle facoltà cognitive e del pensiero razionale. il tetris sembrerebbe provato di sì. però so di sicuro che, come taglia corto quel fallimentare big lebowski che è lo zoyd wheeler di questo romanzo, «finché è durata, ci siamo divertiti un mondo».

Pynchonian zaniness + fibrous nutrition at the sentence level + fun to read + hermeneutical-political + leaving plenty of lacunae in immediate comprehension to commit intellectual effervescence, not to mention I’m of an age to not to have to look up most of the cultural references.

Vineland is my publisher's favorite book so I'm actually contractually obligated to like it. And boy, let me tell you, it was great!! Helluva book, helluva book! True classic.

No, really, I just thought that first line would look good on twitter. You see, I have all my reviews set to automatically pop up on my feed and... Oh, the book, the book, right. I've come around pretty much all the way on Pynchon. I started with Against the Day, which is maybe a weird place to start, but one year I found a hardcover copy at the Shanty Days Book Sale, the most glorious day of the year in our little fishing town! The high point of Shanty Days weekend? Many will say the rip-roaring favorite-oldies-infused set by Spice on Saturday night; some swear by the line dance-a-palooza inspired by the Birminghams on Sunday afternoon... 'last big day drunk of the festival, boot-scootin' country flavor, best place to pick up a pretty, good-time lady!', many an old festival vet will say with a greasy wink in his eye. Some people like the parade (finger down throat, barfing gesture), some people like the fireworks, some folks say Shanty Days has never been the same since the Chicken on a Stick stand stopped showing up. What happened to them anyway? A whole novel could probably be written on what happened to the Chicken on a Stick man... a sad one probably... but yes, the cool kids know the book sale is where it's at! Um... anyway, I liked A the Day, but found parts of it annoying. I was left feeling... not entirely convinced. Next I read Gravity's Rainbow. I found that one to be pretty much 'the shit', as it were. All it's cracked up to be, mate.

Vineland here was quite a different animal, however. It's sprawling and crawling with paranoia and conspiracies... pretty stunning some of the parallels between Regan-era paranoia and Trump-era paranoia. You know, in that it's less paranoia and more the fact of crude, greedy, shameless pig-fuckers running the country. VOTED IN, by US to run OUR country. Kind of depressing... but I digress. What I'm driving at is that for all the wacky trippiness of action and deep state stuff Vineland is actually kind of understated. I'm starting to think that Pynchon maybe isn't all that complicit in his being touted as some kind of genius or meta fiction hero. Like the Cubs or the Red Sox or... well the Packers, it's the fans that are really the problem. Insufferable pricks a lot of them. Not my publisher, though. He's aces. If anyone would suggest that I implied otherwise, I would use my myriad connections in the shadier branches of the enforcement arm of our government or possibly the underworld to have them... redact such groundless slander. Permanently. Ya got me?

Vineland was a good book. That's for all those of you who sensibly skipped the preceding immense block of tripe which was surely churned out in some amphetamine fever. Trippy book man. Real groovy.

The novel transports him back to California, the country he has often visited, even lived in, but which still seems like a dream, everything too vivid, too distinct, too much to be real, the Pacific viewed from halfway up a mountain, separated into bands progressing from aquamarine to eggshell, sea transformed into sky in a series of gradations as precise as the steps in a theorem, the ever-present background hum of violence occasionally coalescing into tangible form, raised voices from the lobby, a scream, coming downstairs to see a man slumped over the front desk, blood pouring from a hole in the occipital region of his head, a cramped office where nerds take a break from creating the future to sit on the floor and drink coffee from laboratory glassware and then return to symbolic manipulations that may turn into billions of dollars which will then be stolen by smart operators more familiar with the legal aspects of stock options, mystical sex on waterbeds with girls who still call themselves hippie chicks when they are naked and speak indifferent Spanish and Japanese, Pynchon reconstructs it all in living technicolor, it is a kind of minor miracle.

Reread 24.09.2018- 07.10.2018

I'm learning that Pynchon is only better the second time around. Against the Day next?

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So that's it for my third Pynchon. Coming down from a sort of high after reading Mason & Dixon about a month ago, I had pretty high expectiations going into this one.

Well, what's it all about? As usual Pynchon has a lot of sub-plots going on, characters disappearing and then coming back into the story again almost at random, and characters coming into the book but you never actually see them ever again. But in its essence it's about freedom, political repression, the tremendous failure that is the war on drugs and, as Salman Rushdie said, a look at what "America has been doing to its children, all these many years," and finally a sort of TV-is-bad-for-you-mmmkay-plot that runs throughout the book. For some reason I thought of this after finishing it...




(http://xkcd.com/1013/)

The whole thing is funny, oftentimes laugh-out-loud funny, and as the book progresses it gets more and more engaging; probably because at first you don't really understand what is going on, but it gets a little easier after a while. Pynchon has a knack for writing extremely beautiful paragraphs. I don't think I've ever read anyone who writes in a similar vein; it's really remarkable at times. Unfortunately I didn't take notes reading this so I don't have any quotes ready, but just take my word for it. Read it and see. It's not as brilliant as Mason & Dixon but hardly a failure of a book either. Very much Pynchon, and well worth reading!

When I was getting a PhD in English, I refused to read Pynchon because I thought the last thing the world needed was another book by a modernist author who trying to be more difficult than Joyce.

Then I picked up Vineland out of a bargain bin, and realized it was probably the funniest thing I had ever read. Pynchon is an incredible comic writer.

Τι να πω γι'αυτό το βιβλίο; Ένα "γεμάτο" βιβλίο, με χίπηδες, ναρκωτικά, ροκ εν ρολ, σκληρή ροκ, acid ροκ, γενικά ροκ, σεξ, Θανατόιντ, μυστικούς πράκτορες, μυστικά κυβερνητικά σχέδια, γυναίκες νίντζα με θανατηφόρα κόλπα, μανιακούς, τα πάντα! Τρελοί χαρακτήρες, τρελή πλοκή, με πολλά flashbacks κατά τη διάρκεια όλου του βιβλίου και χωρίς προειδοποίηση, αν δεν προσέχεις λίγο, μπορεί να μην καταλάβεις τίποτα, το σίγουρο, όμως, είναι ότι μερικά πράγματα δεν θα τα καταλάβεις έτσι και αλλιώς, οπότε το θέμα είναι να μην το "χάσεις" όλο το βιβλίο.

Δεν είναι ένα απλό βιβλίο, με αρχή, μέση και τέλος, αλλά μια κεντρική ιστορία του παρόντος (του 1984), με πολλές ιστορίες, διάσπαρτες, που πιάνουν και το μεγαλύτερο κομμάτι του βιβλίου, και αφορούν το παρελθόν, πολλά ή λίγα χρόνια πριν το 1984, και αφορούν επίσης πάρα μα πάρα πολλούς χαρακτήρες, είτε είναι πρωταγωνιστές είτε είναι απλώς γκαρσόνια σε μια παρακμιακή καφετέρια στου διαόλου τη μάνα, οπότε, όπως είναι λογικό, τα ονόματα είναι πολλά και πρέπει να κατανοήσεις τη σχέση που έχει ο ένας χαρακτήρας με έναν άλλο και να μην αναρωτιέσαι συνεχώς "ποιος στο διάολο είναι αυτός τώρα;".

Το βιβλίο αυτό σατιρίζει το κόσμο των χίπηδων, αλλά και το Κράτος. Από τα πιο δύσκολα βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει, αλλά και από τα καλύτερα, και σίγουρα από τα πιο ξεχωριστά. Πάντως, μπορώ να πω, ότι κάποιος θα το αγαπήσει αυτό το βιβλίο, ή θα το μισήσει επειδή δεν θα καταλάβαινε, μετά από αυτό το ταξίδι, ποιό είναι το νόημα και για ποιό λόγο γράφηκε.

Η γραφή καταπληκτική, φαινόταν, αλλά η μετάφραση όχι τέλεια, και μερικές λέξεις, μερικές αναφορές σε διάφορα πράγματα που αφορούν τις ΗΠΑ, δεν εξηγούνταν σε σημειώσεις, όπως σε άλλα βιβλία, αλλά τ'άφηνε έτσι... Αλλά δεν με πείραξε και τόσο αυτό.

A dystopian presentation, but with zombies and ninja magic, of Reagan's United States.

Follows a group of '60s new leftists and their antagonists, through use of translucent digressions, elliptical flashbacks, and abrupt changes of perspective, back and forth through several decades.

It might read as a mess at first, and therefore likely requires labor-intensive rereadings. That said, there're plenty of brilliant turns of phrase, descriptions, and scenes. Much comedy, satire, parody. Likely in the same genre as Mieville's Iron Council, even though it's not obvious if there's any direct influence.

The novel opens with a plot-related distinction between defenestration and transfenestration (15). For my second reading, I will assume that this is the basic structure of the presentation and be on the lookout accordingly.

Some interesting incidentals, illustrative rather than exhaustive, as it is pregnant writing:

We are told that a mobster's library included a copy of Delueze & Guatarri's Italian Wedding Cake Book (97), which is a slick little joke.

Ninja magic, should sound familiar: "She learned how to give people heart attacks without even touching them, how to get them to fall from high places, how through the Clouds of Guilt technique to make them commit seppuku and think it was their idea - plus a grab bag of strategies excluded from the Kumi-Uchi, or official ninja combat system, such as the Enraged Sparrow, the Hidden Foot, the Nosepicking of Death, and the truly unspeakable Gojira no Chimpira" (127). In learning a "system of heresies about the human body" (128), our communist ninja also learns "the Vibrating Palm or Ninja Death Touch" (131). So, yeah, it's kickass. (There's also a way to undo the vibrating palm, as it happens.)

Engaged gender politics, such as the presentation of Sedgewick's homosociality thesis, as when the novel's obscure object of desire is told by her fascist lover that she is "the medium [leftist lover] and [fascist lover] use to communicate, that's all, this set of holes, pleasantly framed, this little femme scampering back and forth with scented messages tucked in her little secret places" (214). There's quite a bit of feminist erudition on display in this one.

We are reminded on numerous occasions, implicitly, of the "metaphor of movie camera as weapon" (197).

Nifty correspondence of cause with Zizek's Sublime Object of Ideology, wherein stalinism requires that "the Communists are 'men of iron will,' somehow excluded from the everyday cycle of ordinary human passions and weakness. It is as if they are 'the living dead', still alive but already excluded from the ordinary cycle of natural forces - as if, that is, they possess another body, the sublime body beyond the ordinary physical body" (Zizek 162-63). Similarly, Pynchon presents a leftist involved with "progressive abstinence, in which you began by giving up acid and pot, then tobacco, alcohol, sweets - you kept cutting down on sleep, doing with less, you broke up with lovers, avoided sex, after a while even gave up masturbating - as the enemy's attention grew more concetrated, you gave up your privacy, freedom of movement, access to money, with the looming promise always of jail and the final forms of abstinence from any life at all free of pain" (230). Add in the zombies, which are weird, possibly superfluous, and genuinely very polite, and it all comes together (or maybe not quite together, but rather not completely disentangled) as a riff on Slovene marxism.

Recommended for those who wish to at least appear more clitorally ladylike, male motorcyclists who for tax purposes reconstitute themselves as a group of nuns, and nomads in the sky's desert.

Me cuesta no mostrar una opinión entusiasta por obras como esta. Las veces que he leído a Pynchon (este y La subasta del lote 49) me ha parecido que es el autor que mejor refleja un relato vital coherente en un contexto histórico determinado y, al mismo tiempo, en cierta medida, desacredita a buena parte de creadores, incluso de renombre; vuelve falsas sus historias, las convierte en fábulas de un mundo demasiado complejo para llevarlas a una trama que se presenta, se anuda y se desenlaza.
Lo importante no parece ser el relato, por muy fantástico que sea, de los hechos acontecidos, ni dónde ni cuándo. Igual que cuando pensamos y vivimos, no solamente lo hacemos con nuestro presente, sino también con nuestro pasado, e incluso con nuestro futuro. Pynchon no defrauda, y sus personajes tampoco.
En un mundo habitado por residuos del hippismo, personajes como Zoyd deambulan por la vida arrastrando un pasado que le permite un sustento futuro; su hija Prairie busca en su madre la explicación de su propia vida; mientras su madre, Frenesí, que había vivido olvidando su pasado no puede dejar de sentir cierta nostalgia por los tiempos de la República Popular del Rock and Roll (PR3).
Alrededor, locos y locas. Tan locos y locas como los que nos encontramos día a día. Tan locos y locas como nosotros y nosotras. Seres desequilibrados tan reales como nosotros mismos: Héctor Zuñiga y su adicción televisiva, Brock Vond y el deseo personificado o LD, una ninja asesina.
Todo ello con dosis de humor a raudales y una banda sonora con el repertorio de los increibles Corvairs y de las Damas Vomitonas. De premio, la aparición como artista invitado de Wendell "Mucho" Maas, al que conocemos de La subasta del lote 49, en un cameo final.
Muy recomendable.