Vineland (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)

Sort of unfairly, Thomas Pynchon's first three novels tend to be either the subject of immense praise or fiery scorn, them being the most (in)famous works in his ouvre, so his later books are left largely overlooked. When trudging through Pynchon's body of work, it's probably not the best choice to go with Gravity's Rainbow as your first book. So I didn't. Vineland wasn't my first Pynchon book either (that would be The Crying of Lot 49), but it almost seems like the one novel of his that I would show off to people who aren't familiar with the wacky world of Pynchon. Almost. Relatively speaking, compared to The Crying of Lot 49 and V., Vineland is kind of a gentle story, or a story within a story. Well, stories within a framework. Well, a contemporary setting that keeps getting hijacked by flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks.To put it simply, the plot of Vineland moves backwards and sideways more than it ever progresses, which is fine if you're into the kind of writing that loves to make digressions. Thankfully, I'm one of those people, but it also helps that Pynchon is a fantastic writer who, after the encyclopedic insanity of Gravity's Rainbow, seemed to have sobered up and written a surprisingly kind-hearted but fairly critical little book about the hippie movement of the 60's and early 70's and why that movement met an early demise. When starting Vineland it appears that Zoyd Wheeler, a middle-aged ex-hippie who gets government checks for his annual acts of craziness, is going to be the protagonist. This is not the case. The book has at least three protagonists, all of whom are quite related to each other, and ultimately it feels like an intricate machine for such a short read (385 pages, which by Pynchon standards is merciful). Vineland has an ending as well, which is refreshing for a Pynchon read, although it's probably the most esoteric part of the entire book. Prepare to not get all the answers you're looking for.Make no mistake, there's some goofy stuff in Vineland, from a secret society of female ninjas to a random-ass episode involving what might be Godzilla. Like Kurt Vonnegut, Pynchon is an author well-known in the world of literary fiction who likes to play around with speculative fiction (and by that I really mean science fiction), and despite having a reputation as one of the more difficult authors out there his novels always have some level of wackiness to them, although Vineland is surprisingly comprehensible for what it is, or at least I found myself understanding most of it. The thing, though, that draws me to each of Pynchon's works, and why I think Vineland is the best of his novels that I've read so far, is that beneath all the drugs and sex and generally zany antics, there's undeniable sentimentality that runs deep here. Each of Pynchon's books that I've read bears this sort of melancholic but profound understanding of human relationships and how we tend to yearn for days long passed, and Vineland is probably the most sentimental in Pynchon's body of work, which I think also makes it his most human.

In my experience, Pynchon's work is generally divided between long, dense, almost inscrutable passages, and slapstick comedy, like a psychedelic Looney Tunes. Vineland definitely favors the latter, which makes it one of his most easily readable stories.I read his later book, Inherent Vice, before this, which did influence my perspective as it explores many similar themes. Aging hippies, selling out or staying true, life after the counterculture of the '60s ended, broken relationships and infidelity — often as a metaphor for what the characters have lost, or betrayed, inside themselves.However, where Inherent Vice is more tightly focused and poignant, driven by an engaging noirish detective plot, Vineland is lighter in tone and looser, a collection of vignettes that amble along until the conclusion.

Never having read Pynchon before and thinking he was basically way far out and impossible to read - don't listen to others - I was pleasantly surprised to find a master of the language. David Foster Wallace immediately came to mind. The ability to write a paragraph long sentence that not only is understandable but easy to read out loud without having seen it before. This is not a trivial talent. Yes the plot is confusing and understanding the relationships between the people is a workout but reading isn't only for escape.

Vineland was not given a fair chance by readers or critics when it came out about 16 or 17 years of practically nothing else from the maddeningly secretive writer Thomas Pynchon since 1973's Gravity's Rainbow. (There WAS the collection of his old short stories called Slow Learner in 1984, with an introduction written by Pynchon himself.) After so long without any new material, people were probably expecting a thousand-plus page world beater, a Gravity's Rainbow 2.0. What they GOT was a three hundred-something page riff on Reagan's America and a conspiracy against its people, American TV culture, the generation gap between ex-hippies and their children, the marijuana and logging industries in rural Northern California, and a younger version of Oedipa Maas from Crying of Lot 49.Compared to Pynchon's first three classics (V, CL49, Gravity's Rainbow), Vineland is a relatively simple read, but no less intriguing. Pynchon's hallmarks of Dickensian character names, a big conspiracy, and grotesque content masked with cornball, slapstick humor are there. Vineland is a fully realized Pynchon novel, but you just don't need a companion encyclopedia at hand to suss out obscure references like you do with Gravity's Rainbow or even the brief but VERY dense 200 pages of Crying of Lot 49.

I have been working my way (Ok, slowly!) through the novels of Thomas Pynchon – 5 in about 8 years – and this 1990 work was the latest I tackled. I would place Vineland closer to a ‘Gravity’s Rainbow style’ work (a novel I didn’t really get on with) than to the later Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge (works which I liked more). Once again, Pynchon gives us a complex, rather rambling (at times), multi-threaded, time-switched tale of modern (Reagan-era, set in 1984 California) America, here with a heavily satirical bent and showing fantastical influences of post-Vietnam, Watergate paranoia, laced with the author’s trademark affectionate sense of hippie-dom. The book’s central relationship between ex-hippie Zoyd Wheeler, his now missing wife Frenesi and their daughter Prairie, being hounded by prosecutor Brock Vond does have its moments, notably of Pynchon’s trademark eccentricity, and the peppering of the text with cultural references I also found periodically engaging. The novel is topped and tailed with a perhaps more traditional form of narrative, during which you can engage more with these main characters, but unfortunately during its middle third Pynchon seems to drift between (often peripheral) characters and the narrative. This tendency is even more pronounced in Gravity’s Rainbow – there we get supposedly 400 characters over 800 pages, here the comparison is approx. 100 characters over 400 pages – but is pared back in the later novels Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, which I found to be funnier and considerably more engaging, character-wise.

Densely written with many an obtuse vocabulary makes it strenuous reading. Coupled with a quite boring (and too many 'characters') cliche West Coast hippy culture narrative and I have to say it does NOT live up to its reputation. Leave it on the bookshelf or the coffee table...

By far the strangest novel I've ever read. The essence is a girl searching for the mother who left her behind when she was small. The strange characters you meet on the way lead to even stranger encounters, leading you away from and back again to the main storyline and away again. What makes the read unique is the language used: erudite, baroque, funny. The reading of a Pynchon book is a challenge and an adventure in itself, whatever the storyline. This book was my introduction to Pynchon and I'm already planning my next adventure.

Beautiful copy

I can't remember how I came across Vineland originally. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I was vaguely aware of Thomas Pynchon's reputation as a recluse, and I suppose I just thought it was about time I discovered what all the fuss what about, expecting an anti-climactic disappointment.But what an amazing discovery, which since that date has been my favourite book and undoubtedly the one I would select if one day banished to some remote place with a single volume limit.Not only did this book make me laugh in a way I never have before or since, behind the bizarre descriptions of life past and present in the United States lies a serious message. I am not sure it is possible to fully understand Americans without reading this book.I could not more strongly recommend it.