V. (Perennial Classics)

I finally got back to finishing this book. I think I started it twenty years ago, was overwhelmed by it, and just dropped it. So this time, I started from the beginning and tried again - much better experience, as it might have taken me only about one and a half months to finish. Anyway, it's a great book. I would give the book 4.5 stars if Amazon would let me, not because it isn't a 5 star book, but because I have decided to rate Pynchon books relative only to themselves. I just happen to think that Masonn and Dixon is Pynchon's greatest.Tthis book focuses on two main characters in Benny Profane and Herbert Stencil. Profane just kind of goes with the flow, while Stencil is in search of the mysterious woman known as V. Now, you'd have to be completely non-Pynchon to think that V is as simple as being just a woman that Stencil searches for - his whole identity counts on her (spoiler or not, I don't know, sorry if it is). These characters are wonderfully explored, Profane more from his emotional standpoint and Stencil from a driven perspective (he is, after all, searching for answers). Along the way, Profane and Stencil inhabit close proximity, but their stories don't merge until near the end of the book. Overall, I think the dichotomy offered by these two characters is the central theme of this book.The story...Basically, this story is about the two men mentioned above - Profane and Stencil. However, it manages to tell the stories of the two characters in parallel, since the characters don't interact until late in the book. Profane's life is pretty simple and non-committal, simply going with the flow. Stencil has studied many different documents to try to determine his mother's identity as well as, to some extent, his own. Stencil knows his father, but was very young when he last saw him, and he knows nothing of his mother.The chapters are evenly distributed among those devoted to Profane, and those of Stencil.In the end, I think the novel tied up strings fairly well - I pretty much felt closure with all the main characters. Stencil's story saddened me the most, while I think Profane's ended as expected. Along the way, Pynchon displays his talents for visually describing a scene (the best of anyone I've read - when I remember his novels, I do so visually), social commentary, technical and historical knowledge, and a variety other things. That this is the first novel of anyone seems hard to believe.To people who have a hard time with Pynchon, and I guess that means pretty much everyone, I have this advice - read it with someone. My fiance' and I read this book at the same time (not at the exact same time, but at the same pace), and we were able to discuss each chapter and, together, we were able to understand the book quite well (I think). She's not exactly a Pynchon fan, but she was willing to make the sacrifice for my benefit. While she liked the novel (4 out of 5 from her), and she recognizes Pynchon's skill as a writer, she felt that some of the stories dragged and also felt that some didn't have a real connection to the rest of the book (the end of one chapter seems to simply list disasters in August of 1956 - anyone who wants to comment to clarify is quite welcomed to do so).As with any other Pynchon book, I have felt a strong connection with the main characters, and I truly was sad to have to end the book. I believe that the meaning of entropy was most clearly explored here - Profane goes on and on almost as time does. Socially, every sequence seems to end in chaos or decay. To me, these were themes that I could grasp, but not in Pynchon's later works, and I think that I need this book to help me understand those later books. About 21 years ago, I read Gravity's Rainbow and I hardly understood it - there is no doubt that I will reread that one, but I have to convince my fiance' to read it with me (she'll be my wife by then).

I had never read any Pynchon before. I had read that he was hard to follow, with hundreds of characters to keep track of. But I had recently finished DFW's Infinite Jest, so I figured I was ready.It took a hundred pages to pick up the rhythm of the book, but from then on it went smoothly. I did do a lot flipping back to see where a character was first mentioned.What is amazing to me is that a 24-year-old knew so much about the Navy (in which I served), could go on for pages describing a nose job in excruciating detail, the history of Namibia and Malta, and lots of other specific stuff.This book is not for every reader. It's not say, a James Paterson that can be ripped through on a beach weekend. But if you can persevere, you will have a unique literary experience unavailable from any author. Plus you will see how Pynchon influenced DFW and other post-modern authors.And you will be part of a secret society, like the Masons or Knights of Pythias.I have an OCD to read books in the order they were written in. The next two books, The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity's Rainbow, have some of the same characters as V.Have fun!

V. is a difficult book. Which is appropriate, seeing as how I basically read it as practice for a forthcoming Gravity's Rainbow buddy read, also somewhat infamous for its difficulty, or at least for its experience and the commitment necessary to tackle it. In any case, it was difficult. Pynchon yanks you around like a yo-yo on a string, taking you through world-history you may or may not be familiar with, introducing you to characters you may or may not need to remember (and so many!), displaying the casual breadth of knowledge by which his stories are created. It's daunting at times. And to think that this was a debut novel, written by a twenty-five year old, is not just shocking but intimidating. And so while it was not the easiest read, it was also, more often than not, brilliant.I mean, who writes at this level from the beginning of their career? It's the type of stuff you could read five times and still scoff at the idea of "total comprehension". It's just full. Nothing is by accident. He plays with form and structure in ways that make you feel less pretentious about using the term postmodern, because reading this, and picturing someone reading it in 1963, one gets the sense that Pynchon was, and probably still is, in a league of his own.He relishes in mystery and grand conspiracy. Enigma. Obsession. He explores the entropic slide into decadence within society; within the human heart, and the inhuman as well. Recurrent mechanistic imagery. The Kingdom of Death, and of Life. Dream streets, and what lies beneath them. To pin him down thematically seems as fruitless as Stencil's "mad time-search" for the woman V., but you get the sense that each connection within the text is woven subtly, with care. There is so much here that it feels hard to even describe, or "review", because so much of the book is... So much of it is detailed foreign politics and espionage. It is art heists and Navy brawls. Small-skirmish military history and alligator hunts through the New York sewer system. There's late-nineteenth-century anarchism. There are plastic surgeons, soul-dentists, and war pilots. There are a multitude of projections, impersonations, and paranoia. It's just— It's weird! It's Pynchon, man.And is it without flaw? No. A debut novel is a debut novel, no matter how excellently crafted. And a modern reader will likely squirm at some of his writing of female characters. But it is a look inside the mind of someone who is responsible for some of the most compelling literature we can display.

This rookie effort is kinda readable at least for a pinchin. I wonder if pinchin cant write or he can and his works are one gigantic sarcastic joke making fun of our lack of being as smart as he is. Either option is unattractive.why does pinchin make us work so hard?