About this title: Zoyd Wheeler collects mental disability checks from the state by jumping through plate-glass windows once a year. His former wife has run off with Brock Vond, a Federal Prosecutor and psychopath, and has changed careers, from radical filmmaker to FBI collaborator. Zoyd's daughter, Prairie, is obsessed with finding and learning about her missing mother. As Zoyd sails through his latest window, an event that has become a yearly media frenzy, Pynchon's acclaimed novel fragments into as many narrative shards, following individual eccentric characters, but ultimately reassembling itself in a ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First edition. First printing, 1 in number row
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780316724449ISBN:0316724440
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Clean, unmarked, slight red discoloration and specks to bottom, DJ unclipped, no cips or tears- Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 385 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780316724449ISBN:0316724440
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Clean pages, no marks or tears, mild reading wear with pages turned up, tear on front cover, small tears on back cover, creases on spine & back cover, heavy wear on edges & corners, tanning to cover, dirt soiling to... Glued binding. 385 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780316724449ISBN:0316724440
Description: Very good in good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 385 p. Audience: General/trade. No Writing. No Highlighting. Tight Binding. read more
Edition: Book Club (BCE/BOMC)
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Little Brown and Company, Boston MA
Date Published: 1990
Description: Near Fine. No Jacket as Issued. 4to-over 9¾"-12" tall. 385 pp. Wraps are clean with light rubbing and corner tip wear. Corner edges are slightly soiled. Text is clean and tight with a 1/2 diagonal crease at bottom corner of page 117. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"I bucked the suggestion that new readers of Mr. Pynchon start with Gravity's Rainbow, typically cited as his most celebrated work. I started with Vineland. I am a 40-something from the PacNW, so his hippie tale spoke to me as an entrance into this writer's brilliance. Having only read this book, I'm very satisfied with my starter selection. I wonder whether someone born in the '70s+ or in other parts of the world can recognize his allusions or how critical that is to the enjoyment. I offer only as cautionary without knowing.
I read as much for a fantastically crafted sentence as I do story. When I hit a great sentence - I mark it. My book is decimated with turned pages and pencil marking. (i.e. "He was born in fury and lived in lightning"-Steinbeck type marking). Pointing only to one simple mark-up, "Sid says with movie avuncularity. . ." How much fun is that line? Vineland surpasses simply great sentences with a wonderfully trippy history, ideology, politics, pop-culture romp of all fun and seriousness that spins the mind around.
On top of these two qualities - he laces together a story that begs a person to start storyboarding with index cards just what happens when. How did that plot just happen? Or, just plain wha? But I just decided to roll with it. I can sway in the plot-dance like a geeky high-schooler just fine and let it roll over me if I'm not responsible for explaining what happened after. It seems a quintessential element of what Pynchon is about and I am quite happy to find this simultaneous irreverent/uber-venerate voice and perspective."
"The first time I tried reading Vineland was shortly after it had been published, and I had just finished reading Gravity's Rainbow. With GR I was hooked from the very first words. I suppose I was expecting the same love-at-first-sight feeling with this one, and when I didn't get it, I tossed it aside.
Now, almost 20 years later, I pick it up again. And this time I finish it.
As I'm reading it, my wife asks me what it's about, and I realize I have to think a bit before answering. In typical Pynchonesque fashion, he throws you into a world so populated by absurd characters, convoluted plotlines, and frequent flashbacks, that most of the time you're reading it with a sense of vertigo; as if someone just blindfolded you, spun you around, took the blindfold off, now see if you can make it to the bathroom before you throw up on the carpet. I explain the book as best as I can to her, and then tell her that it's just an awkward attempt on my part, and that really, she should read it.
If you like reading great dialogue, then you'd like reading this book. Pynchon seems to love writing dialogue, and it's a real treat to read it; especially the masterful way he plays with his characters' accents. He makes Zoyd's brain-fried-by-drugs slurred speech and Brock's cocksure, but fragile, bravado come to life. And I love the way he punctuates the book with outlandish scenes so deftly. They come out of nowhere, and blindside you. After reading them, you have to pause and ask yourself, "What the hell just happened?!"
However, with all that being said, I have mixed feelings about this book. It felt more comfortable this time around, but it wasn't until I had about 50 pages to go when I realized I didn't want it to end. Up until then I wasn't really enjoying it. It felt more like I was reading it just to get through it. But nearing the end, I finally connected with the characters, and actually cared about them; even a brand new character he just introduced.
There were times when his brilliance shone through, but unlike GR, these moments were few and far between. If you haven't read Pynchon, and would like to, read one of his first three. They are among my favorite books of all time. But not this one."
"I read about half of this many years ago, getting sidetracked when some life event intervened in my serious reading schedule. Finally picked it up and re-read it from scratch. It's a pretty amazing book: easier to follow that Gravity's Rainbow, of course, but in many ways nearly as effective in its sarcastic and zany subversiveness.
That it's a scathing look at the underbelly of the Reagan-driven 80s (as seen through the lens of the degenerate remains of the California counter-culture) makes it interesting to me, since my own political coming-of-age and disillusionment at the shallowness of mainstream conservatism and popular culture took place during that time as well (though on the right coast rather than the left).
Fun and surreal narrative roller-coaster ride. I also can't help but think Jason Lee's "Earl" character is somehow derived from Zoyd Wheeler, and despite myself I keep seeing Robert Downey, Jr. (or a younger version of him anyhow), as evil War on Drugs genius Brock Vond.
Not that anyone would ever be so insane as to try to make a movie out of a Pynchon novel."
"The thing I love about Pynchon novels is the sheer volume of characters and scenarios that he drags the reader through. By the time you complete the cook, you're left scratching your head, wondering what the hell just happened.
Where do I even start describing this book? Burned out hippies receiving mental disability checks from the government, female bodyguards who have been trained in the most secret forms of Ninjitsu, power crazed government employees causing havoc wherever they turn and ruining people's lives for their own sheer enjoyment...
I'm sure if you're considering reading this that you are familiar with some of Pynchon's other work. This book is slightly shorter than you would expect if you compare it to V or Gravity's Rainbow, but it's just as good. Highly recommended."
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