Given Pynchon's penchant for
popular music, it seems appropriate that his novel V. inspired at least two musical
compositions in the 60's. The first was an instrumental piece entitled simply V. by
Pynchon's Cornell friend Richard Fariņa. It appeared on Celebrations for a Grey Day
(Vanguard, 1965), which the New York Times critic Robert Shelton chose as one of
the ten best folk records of that year. The song also appears on The Best of Mimi and
Richard Fariņa (Vanguard, 1971), a two-record anthology. V. is played on a
dulcimer with tambourine accompaniment by Bruce Langhorne. The droning dulcimer has a Near
Eastern flavour which seems to have been inspired by the Alexandria of V.'s Chapter
3. In his liner notes for Celebrations for a Grey Day, Fariņa describes his
composition thusly:
"Call it an East-West dreamsong in the Underground Mode for
Tom Pynchon and Benny Profane. The literary listener will no doubt find clues to the
geographical co-ordinates of Vheissu, the maternal antecedents of the younger Stencil, and
a three-dimensional counter-part of Botticelli's Venus on the half-shell. May they hang
again on a western wall."
CDs &
Books
Celebrations
For A Grey Day
Mimi & Richard Fariņa / Audio CD / Released 1995
Our Price: $13.27 ~ You Save: $0.70