There wasn’t much consensus on the next book club and I just finished my last book so I’m starting in on Vineland next.
This is where I’ll post (Spoilered if necessary) thoughts on this book as I go, hopefully chapter by chapter.
People can join in or not I guess. @JaguarPirate and @Scagden both expressed an interest in this so maybe they, like me, have a 99p Kindle purchase looking at them.
I’m Pynchon agnostic and I would love to get down off the fence and read this and have an opinion about it. I’m not 100% sure about reading it RIGHT NOW cos I’ve got five books on the go at the moment according to good reads and I’ve just come home with a crate load of paper books from school as leaving presents (my colleagues got me beer and books, how well they know me).
Well this thread will be waiting for you if you come by.
I’ve never read anything by him but I did see One Battle After Another which is apparently inspired by this.
Is it as good as Andyland
@andyvine come and collect your dad
Love Pynchon, want to read it due to the OBAA connection too, could be up for this
Halfway through my current but short book, might see how quickly the library has Vineland available. One of his shorter ones too which helps
I read it earlier this year but I won’t jump the gun
This is a surprise to me given your profile pic!
I read it recently so won’t again this tjme but will likely chip in
Post / profile pic DISSONANCE
Ha! You (and @manches ) got me… I chose this profile pic (back in 2006) cos I wanted something that said “anonymity” and I loved the “THOMAS PYNCHON’S HOUSE” gag in the Simpsons. But, yeah, I suppose I should really get into the man himself.
I read Gravity’s Rainbow a few years ago some bits of it I LOVED, the writing was out of this world but, as a whole, just trying to work out what the fuck was going on I found a slog.
I read Crying of Lot 49 30+ years ago. I did really enjoy it but memories of the comedy paedophilia have put me off going back to it.
Okay, chapter 1 done:
I really like the writing although it’s not quite five star for me, I guess because it’s got a touch of ‘ramble’, but it’s not self-indulgent, which is a plus.
I think having seen One Battle After Another has helped too because even though the particulars (so far) are different, the broad strokes align and give me a sense of who’s who.
Really quite enjoyed the setup and plot of this chapter. There’s a style here I can only really think of as “American early post-WW2”: stories about every day life with a streak of absurdist helplessness running through them, and an underlying sense of wondering what the point of living is. That feeling that the farther you get from the ionised heroics of WW2 the less impact your life can truly have. Reckon Fight Club was almost the last gasp of this as a whimsical expression before we started back into fascism, maybe?
It’s a surprise for me to learn that Pynchon is (a) still alive and (b) was born in 1937 and so very much predates the Boomer generation. What I’m saying is this feels like the writing of a younger man, so far.
His later work demonstrates a working knowledge of Pokemon, specifically Psyduck
Also Hideo Kojima, Deus Ex and Final Fantasy X
Kind of central to Vineland is the specifics of his generation and consequently how he relates to the counterculture, whereby he feels kind of too young to relate to the beat generation but too old to relate to the hippies
I will likely be like the rat from off of Horrible Histories in this thread
It’s fine, I’ve never seen that so you can wholesale rip him off 
Chapter 2 (read before crashing last night)
Found this funny enough to almost wake my wife with a snort when Zoyd recalled being called a lunch meat sucker, plus the incredible notion that Isiah is just hanging out ready to come in when Prarie thinks the time is right, meaning he was out there the whole time while she watched a movie and then they both watched the news.
Obviously it’s a bit 
as far as a 14 year old girl dating a 17 year old boy but felt the book was acknowledging that.
I’m glad I read GR but did struggle with it overall too. Loved Crying but haven’t read it for ages
Beyond that I think both Bleeding Edge (maybe my fav of his) and Inherent Vice are very readable while still being very Pynchon-esque. I also have Mason & Dixon sitting on my shelf looking at me, but that’s vaguely intimidating …
