“‘It’s why you kill each other, isn’t it?’
“‘Who?’
“‘Men. Because you can’t love each other.’”
Every book Pynchon has written is significant to his catalog in some way. V. Is the first, Gravity’s Rainbow is his most famous, Crying of Lot 49 is his shortest, Inherent Vice has a film adaptation, Bleeding Edge takes place in the 21st century, Mason and Dixon is the only truly 100% historical fiction work of his, Slow Learner is his only short story collection, and Against the Day is his longest. Hey, wait a minute. I think I forgot a book.
…Oh, I know! I forgot Shadow Ticket, which is releasing in five months. Well, I can’t imagine in what way that book will be significant yet, so might as well not include it.
Oh, and Vineland. Huh. Guess that one just slipped my mind.
Vineland is Pynchon’s most overshadowed, forgotten, underrated, and emotional work. Wait… emotional? Yeah. Pynchon’s work I would say makes you feel many things and expresses many emotions, yeah, but I wouldn’t call it “emotional.” I think while his writing can make you feel things, it’s rare that true emotion comes through in them. Vineland, as many have said, is weird because it’s depressing. While featuring the typical hallmarks of characters with crazy names, wacky blue comedy, strange postmodern stoner philosophy, a seemingly endless supply of knowledge in regards to obscure historical events and information in just about every category imaginable, conspiracies, and stories within stories galore, Vineland is not an ultra-weird postmodern journey into the surreal, rather a tragicomedy, 50% of it being stories told by members of the 24fps film crew. The other 50% is general Pynchon craziness, but with depressive undertones. Vineland is in some ways the hippie’s Great Gatsby: a tale of disillusionment with one’s surroundings. Vineland is a book that is meant to reflect what was the hippie generation’s failure to actually change society in a meaningful way. It’s the midlife crisis of Pynchon’s writing.
Comments