Vineland

A quick read (I know it’s been awhile, but I was just vacationing in Sweden, all spring and summer) by Thomas Pynchon standards, but not by any means "lite," or even "light," or even “lingonberry sparkler.” This novel came out in 1990, a year, as you may recall, that seemed to mark scraping the bottom of something (little did we know). There had not been a Pynchon book published in many years, except for a collection of short stories, so the hubbub around this book was considerable. Most reviewers considered it a disappointment, but I have to admit, it's my favorite of all of his books (haven’t read the last two yet!).

Zoyd Wheeler has run out of Count Chocula and must settle for Froot Loops-- and this simple event propels him through a series of misunderstandings, missed connections, and coincidences in a story that mirrors Orwell's 1984, the year the story is set-- but not really, of course-- that's just the jumping off point.

The characters-- friends and family of Zoyd's-- find themselves battling secret underground organizations and the banality of the popular culture, both-- and little distinction is made between the two. As the story progresses, in fact, little distinction is made between Zoyd and his posse of old hippies, dropouts, and counterculture casualties and the forces of evil they are battling. Eventually the realization is reached that they are battling themselves; the opposing forces have just set up a mirror at the crossroads and the freaks, unable to distinguish very much through a blue haze of marijuana smoke, spend all of their remaining time and diminishing resources catapulting flaming balls of what were once good intentions at hideously reversed images of themselves.

In a post-modern twist, real life author Rick Moody is introduced into the story, along with Japanese auteur/comedian Beat Takeshi. The two bill collectors-cum clowns threaten to take over the novel, and finally release a toxic cloud of radioactive ice crystals into the atmosphere when their demands aren't met. The water of the region, contaminated as a result, is then found to cause personality disorders in the majority of the inhabitants under the age of 45-- a disorder the aligns their neurosis’s perfectly with that of Moody, who when he then runs for mayor, wins handily. Takeshi, in a last ditch attempt to retain the power of terror, shoves a chopstick into each eye of an Austrian action hero while campaigning on national television.

The novel ends with the Phoenix family’s returning to their gypsy days and traveling to Cuba on a homemade raft. Zoyd, in a fit of despair, takes a job at the Sacramento IKEA, retrieving shopping carts from the ghetto. DL, who I haven't mentioned yet, prepares himself for the worst earthquake in recorded history. And Elmhurst becomes the world's greatest authority on later period Brautigan. Echoes of this novel can be found in all of the Coen Brother's films-- indeed, Zoyd is a mirror image of "The Dude"-- and rumors of Pynchon and Garrison Keillor being one in the same were finally put to rest.