Vineland

Probably my favorite Pychon book. This book reads fast, like a paperback thriller, not all like Gravity's Rainbow or Mason Dixon. Sometimes great authors take a stab into genre fiction, and this time it really worked, as did his more recent beach detective story. The characters are memorable, it's funny, it's unpredictable, and the writing is fantastic.

Pynchon even at this superficially simplistic presentation is deeper than most. Understand that Vineland is where we leave our lies and proceed to realization of the pretense needed to interact with the manipulators' realm.

As advertised,

Pynchon. Love him, you have Vineland already and are a major fan. Hate him, and I can't change your mind.

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.

- 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.

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.

I keep reading books by this well recommended writer and keep asking myself why. This book sys a lot about California, some relevant. It says something about human relationships. Much is interesting. Some is funny. It is probably my fault tht I dint njoy it.

À moins de croire aux fantômes et à Godzilla vous perdrez votre temps à lire cette prose emphatique qui tourne en rond...(de fumée... de joint...)! Pour au final rejoindre Heidi au Heidiland! L'auteur nous prend vraiment pour des décérébrésOh, bien sûr , le roman (navet?) comporte quelques étincelles mais n'est ce pas ce que l'on attend d'un écrivain? Il n'y a donc pas lieu de s'extasier ! Vine(Heidi)land...ou, pourquoi, comment, quand le postmodernisme repousse les limites!Ces mêmes limites, que l'on ne peut nommer sous peine de paraître grossier, auraient fait dire à Homer Simpson que si certains de ceux auxquelles elles s'appliquent se promenaient avec la tête dans un sac en papier, eh bien! Pynchon (roulement de tambour) aurait le droit d'apparaître dans la série éponyme!