V. [Paperback]

... so read the blurb on the back of my now ancient copy of Pynchon's classic novel. This is my third reading; I've savored less than five other books in a triple read. V's re-reads have been roughly twenty years apart. Each time I find Pynchon's erudition, across a broad range of fields, as well as his knowledge of the human condition, which he places in capitals at one point in this novel, absolutely astonishing. And perhaps the most amazing aspect is that Pynchon was only TWENTY-FOUR when he wrote it. How, how, could he have learned so much by then? It is humbling.

"V.'s is a country of coincidence, ruled by a ministry of myth." That is one of Pynchon's apt descriptions of his work which is imbedded in the novel. There is a thin narrative string, Stencil's nominative search for "V," starting with a discovery in his dad's diplomatic papers, which weaves its way through the book; though it would be a stretch to say that it ties it together. Along the way, Pynchon devotes entire chapters to, what for an American, are somewhat obscure portions of European history. There are the spies in Cairo, and the impact of the Fashoda incident, in 1898, as France and England jockeyed for imperial positions in Africa; there is the chapter in former German South-West Africa (present day Namibia; , in 1922, a South African mandate); another is on the political unrest in Florence, Italy in 1899, which serves as a backdrop for some Machiavellian musings on the lion and the fox; there is the siege of Malta during the Second World War, and there is another chapter set against the "June disturbances," also in Malta, of 1919, and there is Malta yet again during the "Suez crisis" of 1956.

America has its own chapters; mainly Norfolk, VA., where two of the principal characters, Pig Bodine and Benny Profane are in the process of leaving the Navy, and gravitating to NYC. Pynchon is a master of mixing the surreal, hence the comparisons with Marquez and Joyce, with analytical, factual narrative. For example, there is a wonderful section on Pig Bodine hunting the alligators in the sewers of NYC, and coming across Father Fairing's "parish," where he preached to the rats during the depression (the meek will inherit the earth!). And this is juxtaposed with the psychological and clinical descriptions involved in a Jewish woman, Esther, obtaining a nose job. Typical of Pynchon, there is a tangential narrative thread that involves Esther's plastic surgeon, Dr. Schoenmaker, and why he undertook this career, after seeing the damage done to his "hero," Godolphin, a WW I pilot. Pynchon covers the "state of the art" for plastic surgery during this period. It is disturbing; plastic surgery in its infancy. As a by-product it created many a "monster" who would haunt the cross-roads of rural America.

For an author with this narrative power, Pynchon is unique in also having a strong scientific background and knowledge which he also utilizes in the story. For example, there is the "catenary curve," complete with the correct equation; Wheatstone bridge electrical circuits, and you could even imagine Pynchon doodling away at Cornell when he decided that the "Kilroy" graffiti drawing of the Second World War was really derived from a band-pass filter! Pynchon has a dentist named Eigenvalue. The author declares that history is a "step-function." It also helps to know four other languages; the author utilizes un-translated French, German, Italian and Arabic.

Social indictments? Franz Fanon, in his The Wretched of the Earth (Penguin Modern Classics) could not have been more scathing than the author's passage about the Cairo cab driver: "where goldsmiths live in filth and tend tiny flames to make adornment for your traveling English ladies." Anti-colonialism? The entire chapter on South West Africa is devastating, culminating in: "... a guilt that had never really had meaning, that the church and the secular entrenched had made out of whole cloth; after twenty years, simply not to be ashamed. Before you disemboweled or whatever you did with her to be able to take a Herero girl before the eyes of your superior officer and stay potent. And talk with them before you killed them without the sheep's eye, the shuffling, the prickly-heat of embarrassment..."

And at 24, the author had achieved some insights into the male - female relationship business: "In five years of marriage all he knew was that both of them were whole selves; hardly fusing at all, with no more emotional osmosis than leakage of semen through the solid membranes of contraceptive..." Or, "A woman wants to feel like a woman...is all. She wants to be taken, penetrated, ravished. But more than that she wants to enclose the man." Or, "Rachel now only wanted to hold him, feel the top of his beer belly flattening her bra-less breasts, already evolving schemes to make him lose weight, exercise more." Or, "And yet one solution to a most ancient paradox of love: simultaneous sovereignty, yet a fusing-together. Dominance and submissiveness didn't apply."

"The Middle East, cradle of civilization, may yet be its grave." For a novel written in 1963, there are some extraordinarily relevant sections for today, including the aforementioned quote. There is the tie in to the Mahdi, the uprising in the Sudan against General Gordon, and the ivory comb, with the five crucified "limeys" that came out of those events. The comb weaves its own way through the novel, ending in a most unlikely place. Pynchon even uses an expression I felt was of recent origins only: "Shalom aleikum." It combines the Hebrew word for peace and the Arabic greeting, "be upon you." The author also has Gitmo (so abbreviated) in the novel.

And a couple of points required waiting for the lengthening perspective of the third time around: "It could only be age's worst side-effect: nostalgia." And, "All the while only in the process of learning life's single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane."

I found some of the party scenes a bit "flat," yet could dress them up as "dramatic interlude." Overall, though, this remains a 6-star read, one of the top 10 American novels, and worthy, with more connections still to be made, of a fourth read, if I'm offered another score of years.

(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on August 06, 2010)

I bought V a couple of months ago and have only just found time to give it the attention it deserves. The ideal opportunity for this was a recent long-haul holiday. V is a complex, intricate and densely detailed novel which requires the reader to remember a large number of plotlines, characters and backstories. I had a similar feeling about the first episode of Boardwalk Empire and the film Gosford Park - at first it seems a bewildering amount is being thrown at you, but it doesn't actually take long to get properly acquainted with the worlds being presented. I enjoyed V very much and was still thinking about it the day after reading. It is in places hilarious, disturbing and sad, and overall a very satisfying read.

V is an unholy marriage between two different stories. Benny Profane is a beatnik who hangs around New York with a bunch of scoundrels called the Whole Sick Crew. Herbert Stencil is bent on proving that history has been driven by the letter V. The result of the combination is a book with more scope than you can imagine would fit into 450 pages. The book careens around the darkest and most colourful episodes of history by turns. Pynchon has his fingers in so many different pies that he manages to connect a huge spectrum of groups and experiences, and you're left with a jaw-droppingly global, if madcap, perspective, on what it means to be around in the second half of this century: 'Be cool, but care.'

Follow the participants in the V spree as they savour the thrills of Suck Hour in the Rusty Spoon, pursue alligators through labyrinthine New York sewers where a deranged Father once sought to convert rats to Christianity, and realise that a desert siege party is the worst of all places in which to attempt to monitor alien emissions...