Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gentle but Substantial (and Funny!) Critique of the Sixties, February 9, 2001
I'll admit right off the bat that this is one of my favorite novels. It's packed with more sly nods to American pop-culture of the last 8 decades than Dennis Miller could ever hope to cram into a whole week of Monday Night Football. The prose is cumbersome and labyrinthine, but Pynchon rewards those with the patience to stick it out. If you are willing to work your way through this dizzying journey to the heart of left-wing politics in America, there's a lot to be learned.Like I said, Pynchon's style is really frustrating at times; clauses hang in places one wouldn't normally find them, long phrases get stuffed in parenthetical asides, and sentences--beautiful though they are--sprawl all over like lines of Whitman or Kerouac. What we lose in ease, though, we make up for in depth. The prose of "Vineland" almost forces you to slow down and savor it, and, given the wealth of historical and cultural moments to which Pynchon either pays subtle homage or deals a slight blow, you NEED to slow down. This matter of style is directly related to the critique that Pynchon develops, through the course of the novel, of the Woodstock generation. "Vineland" charts the counter-culture's successes and failures in a very fair way, and measures the 1960s against the larger tradition of radical politics in America dating back to the first-half of the twentieth century. Rather than narrowmindedly berate the hippies for their rejection of traditional moralities (as a whole ugly slew of right-wing critics has done, from Michel Houellebecq to William Bennett and Rush Limbaugh), Pynchon's problems with sixties radicalism revolve around the gut-instinct, spur-of-the-moment flightiness of the era. What was needed, the novel seems to suggest, was more thought and study, less immediate action, and a better understanding of the long term--all of which was total anathema to a generation hell-bent on living for the moment and equally convinced of the revolutionary potential in doing so. Against this, the advice given to Prairie Wheeler (whose search for her lost mother sends us on this trans-generational and -historical thrill ride) to study the things she doesn't quite get, is good advice for anyone who wants to slog through this book. Pynchon knows a hell of a lot of important stuff and he's not afraid to show it; however, obscure references should not be a reason to discard "Vineland," but rather a reason to open an encyclopedia, to find out more about a sort of hidden history of the left half of the USA. I've made the whole thing sound very dry and political, but there are other forces at play in "Vineland" that simply can't be categorized or explained: mysterious, Godzilla-like footprints that flatten buildings, for example, or ninja death-touches gone astray. And this is to say nothing of the sheer humor of this book, which is off the charts from the outset, when an aging ex-hippie jumps through a plate-glass window to ensure that his government disability checks don't stop. If you are interested in where the 1960s got us, where they didn't get us, and what we can learn from it all, or if you just want a demanding but rewarding and humorous read, then this book is a must.
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34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Trip Into the Past, July 18, 2000
By A Customer
In Vineland, Thomas Pynchon takes us back to the Reagan era of 1984 California.The book begins with Zoyd Wheeler waking up on a fine summer's morning to some Froot Loops with a little Nestle's Quik on top. Zoyd lives in Vineland County, California, a fictional, forest-filled refuge for ageing flower children. And Zoyd play the part of ageing flower child to the hilt. He is a parttime keyboard player, handyman and fulltime marijuana grower who retains his disability benefits by jumping through glass windows once each year on television. Zoyd has become a single parent to his teenage daughter Prairie since the mysterious disappearance of his wife, Prairie's mother, Frenesi Gates. A radical filmmaker during the 60s, Frenesi allowed herself to be seduced by Brock Vond, a federal prosecutor who was responsible for Frenesi's transformation from hippie radical to FBI informant. Two decades after Frenesi's "disappearance," Zoyd is still looking for her, as is Vond, as is Prairie. The plot then becomes dense and tangled with flashbacks and flash forwards. Much of the book is simply gross exaggeration that is fairly preposterous and, at times, very funny. Pynchon has a penchant for working symbolic meaning into his titles. Vineland is no exception. Vineland is, of course, the name of the mythical California setting of the book, but it is also the name Leif Ericsson gave to North America. As such, it was the name for a land untouched by human hands. The exact opposite happens to be true of 1984 California, as anyone who's ever visited the area knows full well. Vineland exhibits none of the experimental prose that made Gravity's Rainbow so famous. In fact, the language employed in this book is flat and simple. For some reason, this flatness seems to work. Essentially, Vineland tells the story of an aftermath that seems inevitable when viewed in retrospect and, as such, it is Pynchon's darkest book. Pynchon celebrates the sixties but goes on to lament their aftermath. He celebrates America while condemning the way its inhabitants have been destroying themselves. With Vineland, Pynchon took one step closer to hell than he did with even Gravity's Rainbow, becoming ninety-nine percent suicide and one percent nostalgia. Vineland's one ray of hope shines in the character of Prairie, yet even Prairie shines none too brightly. During one of the book's most pivotal moments the only thing she can think of to do is to sing the Gilligan's Island theme song. Vineland is Pynchon's only book dealing with the present. While the ludicrousness of Home Shopping, MTV and malls have not passed unnoticed, Pynchon does see more humor than unrelieved bleakness in the present state of America. But he is worried, that is plain to see. While more bleak and barren than Gravity's Rainbow, Vineland at least holds out a few rays of hope.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
His best book...really, September 9, 2003
This book has always been shamefully underrated, and I've never been sure why. As Pynchon's first new published work after Gravity's Rainbow (not counting his intro to Slow Learner and letters to various Northern California local papers written under the pseudonym, Wanda Tinaski) it must have come as a shock. Where was the dazzling virtuosity? Where was GR's fascination with hidden conspiracies, inanimate processes and their ineluctable creep into and over human life?
But this book has nearly all the complexity of GR, just hidden in a narrative so perfectly crafted that you barely notice as it slides from time to time, place to place and most signigicantly, person to person. It is also a retelling of a set of Greek or other myths (especially in all the lands of the dead that characters must enter and re-emerge from) or a fable of the dream of American freedom - a dream much older than the hippies. And no less than GR, and perhaps more honestly, Vineland takes a very hard look at what it means to be free or not. It is in many ways an answer to GR, taking up it's concerns and treating them forthrightly. But instead of laying the blame on inanimate processes of technology, here Pynchon looks as what "actual" people do, conciously and unconciously, to create our world, and he is not afraid to lay the blame squarely on people who insist on attempting to control others, and finding hope in those who wish only to live their lives.
Which brings up the point of the whole book. Without question, Pynchon's strongest, truest characters live in Vineland and it is for them and them alone that it is written. In his intro to Slow Learner, Pynchon mentions how much more important good characters are than clever ideas, and I have to agree. There are no clever conceits (like GRs rocket) unifying this book, and that may disappoint some, but the characters are as alive as any in fiction.
It's true that to like this book, you already have to agree with Pychon's politics, more or less. But they aren't much different from what we're taught to believe America is supposed to be about; personal freedom and responsibility, melting pot, no aristocracy, level playing field, etc. etc. I bet there are some "conservatives", especially out west, who could get with this book. But eastern tighty-whitey types - forget it.
Most of all, Vineland is the book where Pynchon's big, sad, wise, loving heart is most to the fore, and this is why it's my favorive of his books. There were many hints of it in GR, and it lives on in the not-quite-as-succesful Mason & Dixon, but Vineland is where it shines. Such stuff may be too obvious to be chic, but to me it's as true and real as anything ever gets.
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