In his first novel for 17 years, the author tells the story of a group of Americans living in the 1980s who are still struggling with the consequences of their lives in the 1960s. "Gravity's Rainbow" shared the National Book Award in 1973.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Pynchon's first novel since the formidable Gravity's Rainbow (1973) more closely resembles his earlier work, especially The Crying of Lot 49 (1966). (In fact Mucho Maas, the ex-husband of Lot 49 's heroine, reappears in the new book.) Vineland, a zone of blessed anarchy in northern California, is the last refuge of hippiedom, a culture devastated by the sobriety epidemic, Reaganomics, and the Tube. Here, in an Orwellian 1984, Zoyd Wheeler and his daughter Prairie search for Prairie's long-lost mother, a Sixties radical who ran off with a narc. Vineland is vintage Pynchon, full of quasi-allegorical characters, elaborate unresolved subplots, corny songs ("Floozy with an Uzi"), movie spoofs (Pee-wee Herman in The Robert Musil Story ), and illicit sex (including a macho variation on the infamous sportscar scene in V. ). Pynchon fans have waited 17 years for this novel, and they won't be disappointed. An essential purchase.
- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch . Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch . Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Tarzan. No Jane. No Cheetah -,
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This review is from: Vineland (Hardcover)
- just Pynchon's group of weirdo characters still living in the sixties though it's the eighties. Take a whole bunch of folks without a prescription for what they're taking much less one for what they're thinking or doing. Add in a Fed Prosecutor head case who has no chemical excuse. Mix in various adherents of oriental mind, body. death and healing arts. Mix together with some mantras and anti-everything that isn't their cause du jour.
You now have the first chapter of Vineland and it just gets stranger from there. And, this is Pynchon's most understandable and easily read effort to this point in his published career. Never fear though. He doesn't cross every "t" or dot every "i" or really let you know for sure where he's going or what he's going to do once he gets there. If you figure that out on your own, that's fine. If not, that's fine, too. If you've wondered what the fuss is about Pynchon, this is a good place to start figuring it out. Vineland is equipped with literary training wheels, so hop on and start pedaling.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A weird and wonderful journey through post-war America,
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This review is from: Vineland (Hardcover)
While there are some territories of the Pynchon universe I yet have to discover, I find myself returning again and again to this twisted version of twentieth-century America, inhabited by classic Pynchon characters like Zoyd Wheeler and Frenesi Gates. Vineland may not be Pynchon's most-read novel, but it shows all the marks of his genius: from his bizarre sense of humor to his knack for mixing the fantastic with the real. It moreover has one great advantage over most of his other work: it is set in the US, especially California, of the 1960s-1980s, a place and period he knew from personal experience, rather than from his encyclopedic knowledge. As a result, it is more full of life and invested with a warmth of feeling that is sometimes lacking in his other novels.
Fundamentally, Vineland is about the legacy of the 1960s, and its wide range of characters all have to deal in some way with their experiences during this important decade, whether they were in revolutionary outfits, popular bands, or worked for the FBI. Pynchon shows great skill in weaving together numerous story-lines of various degrees of weirdness, and tells a surprisingly rounded story that centers around themes like authority, obsessive love, and hope for the future. Vineland reads at times like a science-fiction novel, a great family saga, or an unfliching portrayal of a heated period of American history, and is always full of humour and unforgettable characters. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone, whether an experienced Pynchonian or new to his remarkable fiction. In fact, I think Vineland serves as the best available introduction to Pynchon that is presently available.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thank You Mr. P,
By KLPLMC (SoCal, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vineland (Hardcover)
Maybe it's because I'm a Californian but this novel speaks volumes of our exentential existance. Hat's off to a novel that other's would call their "great American novel" but for Mr. P, a tough act to follow after "GR." With echo's to the Reagan paranoia, all I can say is,"this bud's for you." May Zoyd live in all of us.
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