A collection of early short stories that is chiefly of interest for the introduction, in which the author spells out why he thinks they fail. Pynchon does not spare himself but, unfortunately, he is right. For aficionados only.<\/p>\n
Typical line \u201cDownstairs, Meatball Mulligan\u2019s lease-breaking party was moving into its 40th hour.\u201d
Pynchon tropes Wacky names, pastiche songs<\/p>\n
Practically plotless, prolix and gargantuan, this novel landed with a\u00a0thump following a nine-year gap. Characters fragment and double in a\u00a0bewildering array, the style pastiches pulp novels, adventure stories and science fiction. It does not add up to more than the sum of its admittedly ingenious parts.<\/p>\n
Typical line \u201cTaking quick looks behind him on the trail, Lew Basnight was apt to see things that weren\u2019t necessarily there.\u201d
Pynchon tropes Real-life events, pastiche songs<\/p>\n
Pynchon\u2019s most recent novel is a\u00a0lightweight. The protagonist, Maxine Tarnow, mother of two, longsuffering partner to a feckless financier, finds herself chasing shadows around Manhattan\u2019s Silicon Alley. Maxine\u2019s skills as a fraud investigator are put to the test unravelling the machinations of the nasty controller of a computer security firm who will do anything to get his hands on a virtual reality simulator called DeepArcher (geddit?). There are plentiful puns, red herrings and surnames that serve as possibly unhelpful acronyms \u2013 the usual Pynchon ingredients, in other words. Here they fail to cohere into an entirely satisfying whole.<\/p>\n
Typical line \u201cParanoia\u2019s the garlic in\u00a0life\u2019s kitchen \u2026 you can never have too much.\u201d
Pynchon tropes Pastiche songs, sex, historical events<\/p>\n
It is 1984, the year of Reagan\u2019s re-election but for Zoyd Wheeler, Los Angeles-based veteran of the radical left, time has stopped. His wife, Frenesi, has left him to raise their daughter, Prairie, alone and he resorts to dismal acts of self-sabotage in order to qualify for government benefits. Prairie, in turn, flees the family coop to track down her mother, a subversive turned informant in league with federal baddy Brock Vond. Pynchon\u2019s themes are prescient \u2013 surveillance, media saturation, generational miscommunication \u2013 but his aim is off.<\/p>\n
Typical line \u201cIf patterns of ones and zeros were \u2018like\u2019 patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a\u00a0computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what kind of creature would be represented by a\u00a0long string of lives and deaths.\u201d
Pynchon tropes Sex, drugs, anagrams<\/p>\n
5 V.<\/a> (1963)<\/p>\n Sincerity is not a quality readily associated with Pynchon, but his debut novel displays an affection for his characters that would later take second place to irony. The story bounces between Benny Profane, unemployed sailor, and Herbert Stencil, obsessive seeker of the elusive V. The language shows its age in places, but the plight of people determined to keep themselves in the\u00a0dark is as relevant as ever.<\/p>\n Typical line \u201cPerhaps history this century \u2026 is rippled with gathers in its fabric such that if we are situated, as Stencil seemed to be, at the bottom of a fold, it\u2019s impossible to determine warp, woof or pattern anywhere else.\u201d The author regretted publishing this novel but he was being unduly harsh on himself. Short, funny and shot through with allusions you can choose to follow or ignore, the story of Oedipa Maas\u2019s search for the meaning behind the supposed rivalry of postal companies is the literary equivalent of non-Euclidean geometry.<\/p>\n Typical line \u201cOedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself.\u201d
Pynchon tropes Pastiche songs, sex, real-life events<\/p>\n
Pynchon tropes Sex, pastiche songs<\/p>\n