Books: The Spores of Paranoia

VINELAND by Thomas Pynchon; Little, Brown; 385 pages; $19.95

It is one of the better-known opening lines in American literature: "A screaming comes across the sky." Thus begins Gravity's Rainbow (1973), the mammoth and, to many, impenetrable novel that established Thomas Pynchon as the most important and mysterious writer of his generation. While his cult exfoliated, the author mostly remained silent; Slow Learner, a collection of five previously published stories, appeared in 1984. Now, at last, comes Vineland, Pynchon's first novel in nearly 17 years, and the faithful can again begin the quest for runic meanings, preferably hidden. And right up at the top of the second page of text, something interesting glimmers: "Desmond was out on the porch, hanging around his dish, which was always empty because of the blue jays who came screaming down out of the redwoods and carried off the food in it piece by piece."

From the sound of a V-2 rocket descending on London in the earlier novel to the cries of birds pilfering dog food in Vineland: um, as a Pynchon character might say, there seems to have been a little downscaling going on around here. The perception is accurate but also, as things develop, a trifle misleading. True, this time out Pynchon has not tried to top the apocalypse of Gravity's Rainbow. He has chosen a subject that may even cause some groaning (Oh, come on, man, grow up) among reviewers and fans: the attempts of some aging hippies to steer clear of the narcs.

Patience at this point is advisable, because it will be rewarded. The year is 1984, although flashbacks soon come thick and fast. The setting is Vineland County, a fictional, fog-shrouded expanse of Northern California where, as one character remarks, "half the interior hasn't even been surveyed."

The spot is a perfect refuge for a remnant of wilting flower children, including Zoyd Wheeler, a part-time keyboard player, handyman and marijuana farmer. Along with his teenage daughter Prairie, Zoyd still mourns the departure and later disappearance of his ex-wife Frenesi, a onetime '60s radical who was seduced into becoming a Government informer by a notoriously malevolent federal prosecutor named Brock Vond. He has apparently not finished hounding the Wheelers and others. As one observer notes, "Nobody knows just what's goin' on, except there's a nut case leading a heavily armed strike force loose in California."

These details establish the absolutely typical Pynchon plot. An evil, well- organized and immensely powerful enemy sows "the merciless spores of paranoia" among a shaggy, lost group of drifting souls who find the real world threatening under the best of circumstances. The intended victims, not all of whom think too clearly anymore, have other problems as well, including the task of making sense out of what is happening to them while knowing that sense, strictly defined, is a weapon of the other side. Caught between these opposing, mismatched factions is a child, Prairie, who would dearly love to find, and love, her mother.