一本关于葡萄园的阅读手册——babies of whackiness

我第一次读到品钦是5年前，vineland，对我来说真是一本奇异的书，是两年的东游西逛里唯一一本带在身边的书，我承认我至今也没读明白它，我喜欢这本书，说不出为什么，但我总想在任何一个时刻在我想重新碰上它的时候再次拿起它，从任何一个句子开始读下去，我不知道它对我来说意味着什么，不知道为什么喜欢它，而我觉得一旦明白了，这一切就会化为乌有。 然后前两天在网上偶然发现了这么一本小册子，一本关于Vineland的解读手册，我情愿相信在品钦的庞大迷宫里不存在任何地图指南，但读了几页觉得这小册子还颇有趣，如果你不把它当作什么入门指南，只是另一个品钦迷的读书笔记的话。 把前言贴在这儿，如果有另外和我一样稀里糊涂喜欢品钦的同志们想读，请留下邮箱地址。 我这儿还有一些品钦原文电子书，vineland, V, the crying of lot 49, gravity's rainbow, uncollected works，有需要的同志们支吾一声。 然后这儿还有一个网站可以在线读一些他的东西， http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays.html INTRODUCTION Thomas Pynchon and Us People read Thomas Pynchon because he's fun. That's why one reads any good novelist, of course, no matter how "literary" or "difficult." Melville is fun, Dickens is fun, Joyce is surely fun. Pynchon, who we rate as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, is big fun. For one thing, like all great novelists, he reveals fascinating, underlying truths about the culture, society, and characters in his books -- and his keen intelligence lends weight to these insights. For another, the beauty and grace of Pynchon's writing is fun -- from his gorgeous turns of phrase and extended metaphors to the artfully complicated plots he loves to weave. Also, he's incredibly, shamelessly comical -- "goofy" might be an even better word -- building in terrible/wonderful puns, silly names, and broad slapstick at every possible turn. In addition, he includes an amusing array of elements from popular culture -- comics, horror movies, rock 'n' roll, TV. Finally, Pynchon is fun because he knows so much interesting stuff -- scientific, literary, historical -- and puts so much of it into his books. As a result, reading his novels can be every bit as challenging (and rewarding) as solving a difficult puzzle. There's a down-side to this, of course. Like Joyce, Pynchon can be tough to get into. His plots tend toward the labyrinthine, his best gags often turn on obscure biochemical or mathematical references, and critical concepts in one book may have their origin (and explanation) in another. Even Vineland, his most recent, and most accessible, novel, has confounded many literate readers. Given all that, it's surprising, perhaps, that Pynchon's books are as popular as they are. At the same time, we know there's a huge number of people who would love Pynchon if not for that "tough puzzle" aspect to his books. So, for all those folks who want to read Vineland, but are uneasy about making their way in, we've put together a "starter" kit, a Captain Midnight Decoder Ring that will serve you as a resource, a reference, a map, and a handy-dandy Pynchon guru all in one. Pynchon's literary output, though of very high quality, has not been prodigious. His first novel, V, came out in 1963. The Crying of Lot 49 was published in 1966, followed by Gravity's Rainbow in 1973, and Vineland in 1990. A collection of early short stories, Slow Learner, appeared in 1984. Over the years we've read these volumes repeatedly -- partly because rereading helped us understand them, but mainly because rereading Pynchon is more rewarding than reading most books for the first time. If we had to rate them, we would rank V and Gravity's Rainbow as his great works-to-date, with Vineland just a hair below. The Crying of Lot 49, for all its appeal, seems relatively minor. Babies of Wackiness (our title comes from a TV show on page 159 in the hard-cover edition of Vineland) started as a series of trans-continental e-mail messages between two pals who love Pynchon, have read all his books many times, and were reading Vineland for the first time, at the same time. We wanted to share our delight in the cool parts, our amusement at the outrageous jokes, and our confusement over some of the obscure references and intricacies of the plot. As we exchanged questions and answers, we found ourselves getting deeper into the book than we'd expected. This process turned out to be so much fun that we kept at it -- and roped in some of our other friends to help. Before we knew it we had this book. Since we're neither lit-crits nor academics, you'll find our tone informal; after all, we never really expected our notes to be read by anyone else. But our intention is more serious than the tone suggests. We hope you'll find the material useful. And we hope you'll read Babies of Wackiness with the same sense of adventure, and discovery, and excitement that we felt writing it. Who, you might ask, are we? John Diebold is a seagoing geophysicist employed by the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University. Michael Goodwin is a writer of books and magazine articles on film, food, music, computers, and traditional American culture. He was an almost-founding-editor of Rolling Stone, Managing Editor of Take One, Senior Editor of Francis Coppola's City Magazine, and an Associate Editor of PC World. He is also an occasional screenwriter and calypso record producer. Also worth mentioning is that all three of us (Pynchon, Goodwin, Diebold) attended Cornell University. Pynchon graduated in 1959. Goodwin started in 1959, and Diebold made his appearance in 1960. A-and not only that, but Goodwin actually met Pynchon. Sort of. At some point (probably 1959 or '60), Goodwin found himself at a party at a beatnik fraternity called Watermargin. Pynchon (even then a well-known campus character, respected as much for his adventures with Cornell Folk Song Club president Richard Farina as for his writing abilities) was there too, standing across the room, talking with Farina. Goodwin has always regretted the shyness that kept him, a lowly freshman, from walking over and greeting the post-graduate celebrity. We're very grateful to all the friends and associates who helped us with this book: Richard Hyatt (martial arts), Audie Bock (Japanese films), Charles Pickel (film stock, studio lights, firearms), Robert Lauriston (Sicilian slang), Bob Dickerson (sportscasters, monster flicks, Italian jokes), Judy Nihei, and especially Naomi Wise, whose close reading of the novel (and our manuscript) provided us with invaluable insights into theme, plot and character -- as well as solutions to countless textual puzzles. Additional material has been provided by a number of devoted Pynchonians who found their way to this text on the Internet and emailed us with invaluable contributions. Our thanks go out to Ben Riley, David Wisker, Anastasia Miller, David B. King, and Jennifer Grodowsky -- as well as several others whose names seem to be lost on the hard disk...