How "Vineland" Came to an End...

... and what a melancholic mood I managed myself to get into because of my recent reading pace! It literally took me nearly a month to finish the book. Just like Nabokov's "Glory" before it, Pynchon's "Vineland" was a never-ending series of false starts. I don't blame the book. "Vineland" is quintessentially Pynchon at his best: surreal to extremes, leading into the dark side with a smile on his face, etc. That's his natural way of weaving a story. There are, I suspect, some influences from "Magic Realism" here and on his other works. It is difficult to pin-point, but the last part of the book reveals characters named in that Pynchonesque absurd way that makes us stop for just a fraction of a second and try to see the symbolism behind the name. Again, that is what he is good at--perfectly good at--and after reading "The Crying of Lot 49" and "Slow Learner," I realize I had no one else to blame but myself for any short comings on the reading.
So, I have decided to cheat the system the last couple of days in order to catch up with my reading. I have proctored no exams this past week, even though there's a pile a mile high on my desk, and I have done the bare minimum of preparation (most was done over the summer anyways). The thing I did, have done and will continue to do is read, strongly into the weekend. Presently, I am reading from my reading list for 2007, trying until the very last day to complete it. I still have some volumes but now that I am over the hump with "Vineland" I think I can complete it. I am reading Maureen Corrigan's "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading!" You might recognize the name because she is the book reviewer for "Fresh Air" on National Public Radio. I recognize the name because she is an English professor at my alma mater, and even though I never took a class with her she was always pleasant to me. Her door leading into the main hall of the English Department was always lined with books sent by publishers, most of which were not going to be read and she would place them there for students to have them. I have still several of those books in my collection. She is a lovely reader. The books is a magnificent piece of evidence that those of us who (as she says, "rather spend time with a book than with a loved one) read voraciously lead a life of intense pleasure and quizzical madness. I am actually taking notes from her book to add to my reading list for next year: "The Classics of the Western Canon" reading list for 2008. She is knowledgeable not because she is a highly regarded critic, but rather because she is the epitome of what readers should be. I love the way she writes and the connections she makes. If you are like me (I tend to buy books about people who read a lot in order to justify my own "madness"), then you need to read this book as soon as possible. What a gem!

Thomas Pynchon's "Vineland"

My lack of time accounts for not having written anything in the month of September. My courses are keeping me extremely busy, and leave me with little or no time to read. It took me nearly a month to finish Nabokov's "Glory," and I am worst off with Pynchon's "Vineland." The novel begins with Zoyd Wheeler, a drop out hippie, last generation of tuned out people living away from the Nixonian Regime. But like every Pynchon novel, "Vineland" turns surreal before you can say "recluse writer," and trying to keep up with the appeareance of ridiculously named characters is enough to keep one entertained and occupied. I mean to say that it is, in many ways, an interesting and well-written novel. I like it and I wish I could actually have more time to devote to it. Here's a passage I thought particularly well-written:



"At some point he must have gone drifting off to sleep, and she hadn't noticed. She watched over him, hers for a while, allowing presence, his beauty, the fear at the base of her spine, the prurient ache in her hands.... at last, so swept and helpless, she leaned in to whisper to him her heart's overflow, and saw in the half-light that what she'd thought were closed eyelids had been open all the time. He'd been watching her. She let out a short jolted scream. Brock started laughing."



Pynchon is a master of the surreal, of that which they call Magic-Realism in Latin American literature of the Boom. I recognize some of the major influences, incredibly so Faulkner is included here. The novel turns into a cloak-and-dagger thing of sorts with all kinds of agents and double-agents raiding and driving the plot of the novel in continuos changes of persona. It is hard to believe I have been struggling with this novel for so long and I still have over 100 pages to go. Again, it is sad I haven't posted much since school began.



I think my book list for the year has been shot. With only a few months to go I still have over ten books to read and at this pace I don't think I will be able to finish. That will be the first time I haven't been able to do so since 2005. Next year I am doing a full-year reading of Classics I have not yet read. There's a lot of Austen and Bronte I need to read, as well as more from antiquity and Dickens. Writing on the blog feels great again. I intend to make my rounds to my friends' blogs in the not so distant future.