Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From the very first pages, where we meet Zoyd Wheeler, who prepares to perform his trademark act of transfenestration on TV cameras to prove that he is crazy enough to obtain the mental disability benefit, it becomes clear that Vineland is not an ordinary novel. Reading it has been a mind-blowing, intimidating, humbling, yet deeply affecting experience. Any attempt of mine to concisely summarize the novel would be a failure.

In most general terms, Vineland, published in 1990 and set mainly in California in 1984, with flashbacks to the 1960s, juxtaposes the zeitgeist of the Eighties in the US with that of the Sixties. The struggles of the 1960s radicals against the government forces provide the basic background of the extremely complex plot, which is an insane whirlwind of events, featuring a kaleidoscope of situations that involve hundreds of characters.

The universe created in the novel is so complex and intricate that I believe a reader may need several passes over the text to have some confidence in understanding most nuances. I am afraid that with my single reading I may have engaged only with a small fraction of the author's creation. There exist several websites dedicated to the analysis of the novel. For instance, Thomas Pynchon Wiki |Vineland impresses with its monumental volume. Virtually each of the 385 pages of the book is annotated in detail. Maybe there exist Master's or even PhD theses dedicated to the novel; if not, there should be!

Throughout the novel, Pynchon satirizes the enslavement of the US population by television. The Tube seems to be the only thing that unites the society. In the words of a critic (Mark Webster), The Tube is ubiquitous. Life is defined, framed, imitated, and irradiated by the Tube. Movie and TV show titles have dates next to them as if they were references for the story. Thirty-five years after the novel was published, the arsenal of the tools of enslavement has expanded to include social media.

My rating of four stars reflects my failure to fully grasp the magnitude of the author's work. I believe that given more time to read, I would assign the maximum rating, as I did in the case of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.

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