Pynchon, Thomas
Pynchon, Thomas( 1929– ),novelist, born on Long Island, N.Y., after service in the navy, graduation from Cornell (1958), work as a technical writer for Boeing Aircraft in Seattle, and a year in Mexico, published his first novel, V., in 1963. A richly complex work, philosophically influenced by The Education of Henry Adams and Wittgenstein, it deals with two major figures in its plot. One is Benny Profane, a constant failure, who drifts through life in such enterprises as hunting alligators in New York's sewers and is associated with his friends, the Whole Sick Crew. Another major figure, the cultivated Herbert Stencil, is more purposeful as he searches the world for V., the mysterious female spy and anarchist, who is by turns Venus, Virgin, and Void. Pynchon's second novel, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), is a shorter fable but marked by the same characteristics. Pynchon's plots are mystery stories combined with science fiction, but the...
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