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The Stop
Vineland is Thomas Pynchon’s1 fourth novel. Published in 1990 to mixed reviews, it remains a divisive work amongst Pynchon fans - largely due to its relative accessibility when compared to his preceding novels.2 Even the companion book that is today’s Recommendation says it’s ‘no one’s most beloved Pynchon novel,’ but I wholeheartedly disagree. Vineland is a profound work of fiction which just happens to be Pynchon’s most straight-forward book, and - at just under 400 pages – a great introduction to this most unique of American authors.
About ten years ago, as part of a book review series produced by my school’s library,3 I was part of a panel of teachers who were occasionally asked to recommend a favourite read. On this occasion, Vineland was my choice - and I think these notes from my bit of the talk cover the novel pretty well:
Thematically, the novel explores how the 1980s destroyed the promises of the 1960s. At its beginning, we’re introduced to Zoyd Wheeler and his 16-year-old daughter Prairie, whose mother Frenesi – who has been missing since the late 1960s because she had to enter the government’s Witness Protection Programme - has without warning decided to come out of protection. Consequently, she’s being pursued by the FBI super-agent Brock Vond who – it turns out – turned Frenesi into a mole in the late 1960s in the first place and has kept her in control through Witness Protection and incredible sex ever since. And this is just the exposition.
The subsequent plot involves meditations on and references to insanity, paranoia, the FBI and the DEA, TV addiction, 1980s video/computer games, Humboldt County (California), kamikaze rednecks, a mysterious hijacking – by aliens or possibly government troops – of a Kahuna Airways plane mid-flight while Zoyd plays piano in the lounge, Star Trek, Zen Buddhism, guerrilla filmmakers, zomeoskepsis (the study of soup), an all-female ninja (ninjettes) sect residing in a secret Californian monastery, Governor and later President Ronald Reagan, the largest monolith of marijuana ever to appear in any person’s lounge, made-up and real songs, movies and television shows – including a Japanese sitcom called ‘Babies of Wackiness’ and adverts for a garden service run by the Marquis de Sod, early computers, jukeboxes, pizza, burgers, sushi, vegetarianism, astrology, martial arts (including the deadly Vibrating Palm), a Japanese insurance firm known as Tokkata and Fuji, the Bionic Woman, a secret Department of Justice highway winding through the California mountains (punctuated at each mile by a photo and short biography of a famous US Conservative), Thanatoids (victims of karma who are neither dead nor alive), references to Patty Hearst, Malcolm X, Nightrider, Cream of Mushroom Soup, a plan - known as REX-84 - hatched by the US government to test its ability to detain large numbers of citizens in the case of massive civil unrest in 1984, helicopter chases, and copious love, lust, sex, betrayal, drugs, and rock and roll. Oh, and some resultant paranoia.
And while even this synopsis is just skimming the surface, the novel somehow makes sense.
For a (very) positive review of Vineland by Salman Rushdie, see: 'Still Crazy After All These Years' (Rushdie, NYT)
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to a brilliant episode of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert (29:52), this time featuring Cypress Hill. Enough said.
Cypress Hill (NPR's Tiny Desk Concert)
The Recommendation
Today’s Recommendation is Peter Coviello’s Vineland: Reread (2020). In this companion to the novel, Coviello - Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago - the novel, initially regarded as a ‘slight … middling curiosity,’ actually offers ‘new ways of thinking about Pynchon’s writing and about how we read and how we live in the rough currents of history.’ Reading the novel as a ‘delirious stoner comedy that is simultaneously a work of heartsick fury and a political portrait of the hard afterlives of failed revolution in a period of stifling reaction,’ Coviello’s examines the novel as the work of a ‘companionable and humane’ author who provides - in his ‘harmonising of joyousness and outrage, comedy and sorrow,’ a way of thinking through 'our catastrophic present.’
From the back: ‘Here is a mash note, a fan’s riff, a sizzling study of Thomas Pynchon’s most misapprehended book, as well as a persuasive argument for its prescience and relevance. Peter Coviello writes with a generous spirit and vibrant clarity about the aesthetic and political stakes of Vineland and of the novel in general. But Vineland Reread is also a primer on how one can be both judicious and joyful in the at of criticism, rigorous but brave enough to double down on your affections, too. It shows us how to love a work of art honestly, communally. We need readers and thinkers like Coviello now more than ever.’
Look for Vineland: Reread at an independent new or used bookstore (or, hey, the library) near you!
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is based on the setting of Vineland - Summer, 1984. So, in that spirit, here are five great tracks from that very lovely time: ‘Oh Sherrie’ (Steve Perry, Street Talk), ‘You Might Think’ (The Cars, Heartbeat City), ‘So. Central Rain’ (R.E.M., Reckoning), ‘Talking in Your Sleep’ (The Romantics, In Heat) and ‘When Doves Cry’ (Prince, Purple Rain). Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is, of course, from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. At this point in the novel, the author is reflecting on life in general - and especially about the fickleness of meaning:
‘And these acid adventures, they came in those days and they went, some we gave away and forgot, others sad to say turned out to be fugitive or false - but with luck one or two would get saved to go back to at certain later moments in life.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
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Until the next Stop …
For more about Pynchon, see The Bus 2.30 ‘Thomas Pynchon’ (paywalled). Pynchon is one of my favourite authors, so there aren’t many sources for today’s Stop outside of my own knowledge. However, for the Recommendation, I used Vineland Reread (Goodreads).
These novels being V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), and - the post-modern beast of them all, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). All of which are brilliant novels in themselves, but … just not as fun as Vineland.
The school at the time had a robust, thriving library. Well-funded and supported by Senior Management, it was an integral part of school life. From a half-termly book club for teachers to various clubs, organisations and competition for the pupils, reading was encouraged and celebrated as a central part of school life. Unfortunately, financial mismanagement and ‘philosophical differences’ have intervened in the subsequent years and the once-thriving Learning Resource Centre has became a shell of itself. A true shame.
Okay, you got me. After a lifetime of avoiding Pynchon, I’m putting Vineland on the list. Maybe even bumping it to ‘next.’