Customer Reviews

V.

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Although not quite unique, Thomas Pynchon's approach to narration is extremely unusual. Often he seems to drone on in endless detail. At times his books read like a description of a vaudeville slapstick routine. Commonly, narrative structure, presumably at the heart of most novels, seems abandoned, or even purposely ignored. The upshot of this is that Thomas Pynchon's novels are strange, and decidedly not for everyone.

Of course the flip side is that for those who find Pynchon to their liking he is a rare treat, an intriguing enigma that you simply cannot stop talking about. Such is the case with V., a novel that over the years has shown a propensity to spark almost endless debate. Ostensibly it is the story of two men, Stencil and Benny Profane. Benny spends the greater part of the novel tramping around New York City with his friends, the Whole Sick Crew, generally not doing much of anything except procrastinating and running through various jobs and friends. Stencil spends most of the novel a quest of sorts, using a unique technique to track down details about an elusive and mysterious woman known only as V.

It has been noted that it is a technique of Pynchon's to surround the reader in layer after layer of detail and leave her to ferret out some sense; V. is certainly in keeping with that tradition. Wrapped up in this book is enough social critique, pop culture, historical theory, hilarious humor, and prediction of the future to make the reader's head spin like the roulette wheel at a casino. Rather than a shortcoming, this overwhelming downpour of data is one of the best parts of V., as there is just enough cohesion among the disparate elements that certain associations, even theories, can be developed. But are the associations really there or just in the reader's head? That is one of the questions Pynchon aches to ask.

Also central to V. is the idea of mechanization and routinization. Several characters in V. (including V herself) become more and more mechanized as time passes. Further, several elements of V. suggest the mechanization of society. Linked to this idea of mechanization is that of routinization, and Pynchon seems to say that the mechanization of modern life has helped create a society that is locked in routine. This theme of routinazation is found in both large and small instances. On the small side is Benny Profane (among others) who is continually unable to break out of the boundaries he has set on his life. ...

I feel my review of V. would not be complete without a few words about Pynchon's amazing breadth of knowledge. Diverse places such as New York City, Malta, Paris, and Africa are made the setting for several of the book's scenes and these locations are discussed with such authority, knowledge, and familiarity that the reader is convinced that Pynchon must have spent five years living in each. Additionally Pynchon integrates a great deal of information into the plot of V. A sampling of such information would include: explicit procedures for a nosejob, World War I fighter pilots, naval vessels, jazz musicians, Machiavelli, modern art, classical art, automobile safety tests, and the Holy Bible. Even at the tender age of 24 Pynchon had filled his head with enough information to inscribe nearly each of the 500 pages of V. with a certain subtext or reference.

Rather than review V. by presenting a plot summary I have tried to express a few of the ideas Pynchon works with. I have done this because V. thrives on non-linearity and a plot summary would be pointless and would do little to give a potential reader a true feel for what V. might be like. Instead I have chosen a few elements that I feel are at the heart of V., and have discussed them. For those who enjoy immersing themselves in a book and look forward to thorough discussions when they are done there are few books I can recommend above V. But for those who prefer more traditional, even formulaic, books I should warn that V., while in my opinion excellent, may not be to their liking. Despite these admonitions I would recommend this book to as many people as possible, as I do believe that everyone should experience V. This fine book may be a difficult taste to acquire, but one well worth the effort.

Thomas Pynchon's first book V. is one of the great books of the last 50 years. It is a book that is filled with symbol and meaning and portent. At the simplest level it is a story about Benny Profane, a poor "schlemil" whose pathetic life is filled with almost surreal adventures that lead him to gangs and love and alligators in the sewers! But Benny's adventures become inexplicablyintertwined with those of Stencil and the mysterious V. And therein lies the great challenge and great pleasure of Pynchon. There is a search to discover meaning and perhaps to discover one's own history. Pynchon's tale leads back to the diplomatic intrique preceding World War I and somehow connects us with the misadventures of Benny. And all the while, like some great mystery thriller in reverse, the deeper one gets into V., the more information that is revealed, the more complex the mystery becomes. Indeed, the thrill of Pynchon is to become ensnared in that mystery and try to find meaning in that complex and interconnected web. Ultimately, perhaps, like all the great questions in life, the question of the meaning of who V. is and the meaning of the book itself may never be answer. But the power of this novel is that it draws you in to consider that mystery. The book, somehow, finds connections between the great historical events of the beginning of this century and several generations of characters who themselves are all interconnected and the ever-changing technology of this century. Is V. a mysterious woman, a cause of the wars of this century or the essential meaninglessness of modern society? Read V. and discover that answer for yourself!

Must break into the SERIOUS debate about this books merit by interjecting that this is, first and foremost, a very funny book. Just hilarious, on whatever level you prefer to read it at. Benny Profane indeed! I was an economics major, not a lit major, that probably helps me enjoy it, as I can readily choose to skip the "layers of meaning" that apparently must be front and forward to the literary types here. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed it so much.

Okay, not for Stephen King fans, certainly not for Danielle Steele fans, you do need the basic triple digit IQ to get past page 30. But you do not have to search for themes and meaning to enjoy this fine read, I swear. Not as accessible as Vineland, perhaps, but a lot easier reading than Gravities Rainbow, or the spotty and difficult Mason &Dixon. In V, the young Pynchon shows his early genius and wit.

Confession: I have not actually read this book in about 8 years, that was my third reading, but I suspect that if it wasn't dated in 1997, after being written in 1960, it isn't dated now.

Thirty years before "The Usual Suspects" prompted us to ask "Who is Keyser Soze?" Thomas Pynchon proposed an even more intriguing question: "Who is V.?" Yeah, that's right--"V.", the book you hated in college. The book your English professor was writing a book about (this was the same prof who'd already written "A Freudian Analysis of Gilligan's Island" and "Finnegan's Wake: I Understood the Whole Thing"). But hey, that guy could make an episode of "The X-Files" sound boring. Isn't it time you started reclaiming--and rereading--all of those books snooty academics ruined for you back in college? And why not start with a fat, sprawling book that's really a whole bookshelf of novels rolled into one? It's a mystery, a slapstick screwball comedy, a cat-and-mouse chase yarn spanning decades and continents, and a horrifying meditation on war. Oh, and did I mention the transparent robot who speaks telepathically--sort of? Or the alligators in the sewers? Read a classic of contemporary fiction that bucks like a mechanical bull--a book written by a guy who was recently spotted wearing a Godzilla t-shirt (true, by the way). It's so mysterious, you'll be mulling it over for months--interpretations are endless. And you don't have to write a paper about it when you're finished

As far as I'm concerned, V, the enigmatic understated protagonist in Pynchon's first novel defies pigeonholing, and those readers who expect to be paid off for simply moving their eyes across the page, investing the same intellectual capital that might sustain a made for TV movie, will be sadly disappointed. Yes, Pynchon, like Joyce, Burgess, Borges, T.S. Eliot, Faulkner, et al., forces the reader to think, and for any genuine understanding, the reader must work, must do research, must have some basic knowledge of the references, must not be afraid to translate, for example, Schoenmacher into beauty maker and Mondaugen into moon eyes. A book like this challenges the reader rather than simply attempting to entertain him with a good yarn. So if you don't like word puzzles or obscure symbolism then stay away. If however veiled references to Stravinsky's Rites of Spring and how the WWII icon "Kilroy" originated and the mechanics of yo-yo-ing intrigues you, then plunge in.

The book is ostensibly about Herbert Stencil's quest to discover the identity of a mysterious woman who makes several appearances in his father's journal, but it's really Stencil's quest to understand his father (in German father is Vater) and perhaps, ultimately, to find himself. Also, there are the colorful escapades of the Whole Sick Crew, the group that Herbert hangs with, including Benny Profane, a navyman, and Rachel Hourglass who has a fetish for her automobile.

In a sense, fetishism, fondness for things, is the gist of the book; everytime V. appears she has one more artificial limb, or glass eye. She is less human and more thing, and perhaps this is what Pynchon is saying about the twentieth century and the World Wars that helped to shape it. In another sense the subject of the book is defined by its negative space. The holocaust and concentration camps of WWII are never discussed, but the theme of man's inhumanity to man is so central that the lack of mention seems intentional.

Finally, however, V. comes to mean so many things more than just the systemized dehumanization of modern man: Vanishing Point, Vector, Velocity, Verboten, and Vater are but a few of the many possibles (see Alan Moore's V is for Vendetta for more)so that it becomes impossible to capture who and what V. really is. Like Moby Dick she is everything and nothing. Worth reading and re-reading for those who are more concerned with literary content then a good story.

What is V? Is it Vogt, the night-time Austrian spy? The (possibly) mystical country Vheissu? Or perhaps Venezuela? The mountain Vesuvius? Veronica the rat, wannabe priestess? Vera Meroving? Veronica Manganese? All of these, none? Does V even exist?

Enter Benny Profane, self-proclaimed Schlemihl and human yo-yo, ex Navy, down on his luck, slightly fat, afraid/entranced by inanimate objects and seemingly incapable of having sex, no matter how many girls blatantly offer. Soon he is entangled with the Whole Sick Crew, a bunch of disillusioned wanna-be artists content to spend their days and nights drinking and discussing the finer points of a society they claim to disdain. Stencil, a middle-aged Crew member on the fringe, is obsessed with tracking down V, linking seemingly obscure, random facts from around the world and throughout time to hunt down the enigmatic...person? Place? Event?

In true Pynchon style, we are mercilessly rocketed from location to location, time to time, character to character. Sentences can begin in 20th century New York and end in 19th century France. Chapters can start in Africa and, through a series of bewildering but carefully placed changes, visit Germany, Italy, America and other areas of Africa during the forty-years previous Herero massacres.

The present time events, focusing on Profane and the Crew, are fast-paced, witty, and for the most part, hilarious. Almost every scene is a party, one notable exception being a hideously graphic nose job. Brief forays into the sewers of New York city near the start of the book are another welcome exception.

Certain ruminations on something v-related (and boy are there a lot!) can trigger whole chapters in the past, some of which are entertaining and meaningful, others of which are unfortunately a drag to read. On the whole, a little over half the extended flashbacks succeed, which isn't a good enough percentage for my liking, but thankfully there is enough here to keep anyone interested.

It is important to note that this is Pynchon's first book, and he was very young when it was written. While the trademarks we've come to love are there: hilarity, songs, extreme tangents, ridiculous character names, the flow just isn't as strong as later books. It does suffer from a feeling of being disjointed, and unfortunately a lot of the sections ONLY link to the 'main' storyline is the letter V, a link which is just not strong enough at times. Still, this is a Pynchon novel; his weaknesses are the strengths of lesser authors.

Benny Profane is an ex-Navy, semi-fat self-proclaimed schlemihl with a compulsion to the inanimate and a seeming inability to get laid. In a process Profane calls "yo-yoing," going back and forth up the Atlantic Coast, Profane finds himself in the heart of New York enmeshed in a group of would-be Bohemians self-titled The Whole Sick Crew, of which some write 1,000 page romance epics incorporating a "Heroic Love" theory and others are Catatonic Expressionist painters who are seemingly capable of only painting Cheese Danishes.

In the Crew there is an old man named Stencil, who is searching. Fueled by a cryptic journal entry of his father, Stencil is hunting for the identity of a woman named V. Is it a woman? Could it be Victoria Wren? Vera Meroving? Veronica the sewer rat? Could it be a place, such as Vheissu? Valletta? Or could it be, say, a V-2 rocket? Is it anything at all? Stencil must know.

So, we are transported by Pynchon to various locales all over the world in different times to discover the mystery of V.; through an assassination attempt in Cairo, a cabal to steal the Birth of Venus in Florence, a V-2 rocket maker's flashback during a siege to Sudwestafrikan massacres of the Herero and Hottentot tribes, to World War II in Malta.

Pynchon opens up his literary career with a bang, and V. is just as encyclopedic, confusing, and awesome as his other, later books are. In true Pynchon fashion the book is loaded with information, some of which is irrelevant to the plot, and is themes of entropy and paranoia are present.

My favorite parts of the book were the sections on Benny Profane and his adventures with The Whole Sick Crew. Every chapter with Profane was macabre and hilarious; in this book I had a couple instances of laughing out loud. Pynchon wrote these sections with vibrancy and life, and situations such as Alligator Hunting and Suck Hour are zany, weird inventions of his own humor.

The flashbacks are different. Not nearly as many humorous instances, and when you first read them you wonder how this one has to do with anything prior. After you get around that barrier you have to actually understand the flashback, as Pynchon wrote all of these in a style that kind of just throws you in the middle of the time/place, leaving you to figure out what is going on. And once you do, the flashbacks are great. Not all of the flashbacks were to my liking (I thought they generally got more bland in the latter half of the book), but once I finished the book I realized that all of the flashbacks were important parts of the story, and one less would have worsened the novel.

Before you realize how awesome this book is and want to rush out and buy it, be forewarned that it can be very confusing at times, especially if you have no prior Pynchon experience. This is not the book to be introduced to Pynchon with. Even if you have read Pynchon, certain flashbacks are laced with Deutsch, French, Italian, Spanish, and some go into obscure philosophical ramblings and Machiavelli references. Also, the book has no definite plot structure, beside the question "What is V.?" To round it all up, Pynchon also has a huge vocabulary. You have been warned.

V. is a great, huge book that I would reccommend to anybody who has read any Pynchon before. Heck, read it if you haven't read any before, it's just that damn good. Not only does Pynchon take us on a quest to discover the identiy of V., he also gives us a retrospective look at the twentieth century.

It took me months of on and off reading to slog through this book the first time. The day I finished it, I tossed it on a shelf, grumbled "What was that?"...and started reading it again later that day. I've read it six times since, each time with growing pleasure at the intelligence, humor, characters, and the understanding that there can be American novels as art that are accessible to any reasonably intelligent reader. Not an Oprah book, no simple answers, or simple questions, but a meaty, densely-described view of a post-war world of ennui and aimlessness. Written around the Beat era, it's like a science fiction novel written by Tom Wolfe and David Foster Wallace, or a mainstream novel by Samuel R. Delany, Edgar Allan Poe and Vladimir Nabokov. You'll probably hate it, think about it for months and, like me, keep rereading it over the years.
Oh, and it's a lot of fun, too.

I realize most reviewers have given 4 or 5 stars, but really - 492 pages to tell what could have been told with the same literary tricks in half that. This is another book that proves the point that just because something can be done - it doesn't have to be done.

I enjoyed the book a lot. The humor, history, characters, scenery, more characters all add up to a fun if challenging read. I just couldn't see the need for the droning endless descriptions that added nothing to the story.

I'll read those he wrote later with anxious anticipation.

The public opinion of Pynchon is mixed, as is the public opinion of each of his works. Some think he is the greatest writer since the second world war, others think he's unreadable. My sympathies lean towards the former rather than the latter. I do not believe Pynchon is the least bit unreadable. Certainly he will appeal to some readers, rather than others. However, I firmly believe that some people are intimidated by his reputation. Yes, there are many, many metaphors and underlying meanings on each page, which intertwine into elaborate puzzles that very few people could solve on their own. However, one does not need to spend an hour reading each page in order to "understand" it. If you read a book for the first time by trying to absorb as much as possible from each page, you probably will not enjoy it. Pynchon's work is, among other things, quite enjoyable. He is a brilliant satirist, among other things, though his novels run deeper than mere satire. "V.", though not his best work in my opinion, is an extremely enjoyable novel that I feel is a good introduction to the Pynchon oeuvre. Read it for pleasure the first time around, then, if you enjoyed it, go back and re-read it, it doesn't have to be immediately thereafter, and try to pick up on more the second time around. A work like this cannot be swallowed whole in a single reading. For those unsure if they want to make the commitment, read the first chapter of this novel. If you find it enjoyable, you'll probably enjoy the rest. If not, just read someone else. Pynchon is a great writer, but he's certainly not for everyone.