Discussion Topics
Thomas Pynchon is critical of authority, whether it is parental or political. In his fiction, how successful are attempts to subvert authority?
Of the many characters in Pynchon’s fiction, which character or characters seem most like Pynchon in outlook and behavior?
What is the nature of the loss in Gravity’s Rainbow?
Discuss the nature of paranoia in Vineland and how it affects the plot.
Mason and Dixon contains, like most of Pynchon’s fiction, a quest. Identify the quest or quests and to what extent they are successful.
Most literary digressions are at least tangentially related to the main plot. Discuss the relevance of the digressions in Mason and Dixon.
What environmental concerns surface in Mason and Dixon?
Other Literary Forms
In addition to his short stories, Thomas Pynchon has published one piece of reportage, “A Journey into the Mind of Watts,” in The New York Times Magazine, June 12, 1966. He is best known, however, as a novelist. His novels include The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). After the publication of Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon published nothing for seventeen years, with the exception of a few articles in The New York Times Book Review. In 1989, he published the novel Vineland, which received mixed reviews from the popular press and almost immediately was the subject of a large number of scholarly articles and papers. This dynamic was repeated in 1997 with the publication of the long-awaited opus, Mason and Dixon.
Achievements
Thomas Pynchon is one of the greatest prose stylists of the twentieth century, a master of the novel, short story, and expository essay. His works have received literary acclaim and their fair share of controversy, as well as generating a remarkable amount of literary scholarship. There is even a scholarly journal entitled Pynchon Notes that is dedicated exclusively to the author. Pynchon has received almost every major American literary award, including the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow (shared with Isaac Bashevis Singer), the Pulitzer Prize (which was later withdrawn), the William Faulkner Foundation Award for his first novel, V. (1963), the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award for Fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters for The Crying of Lot 49, and the Howells Medal, which Pynchon refused to accept.
Other literary forms
Before his novels began to come out, Thomas Pynchon (PIHN-chuhn) published a handful of short stories: “The Small Rain” (1959), “Mortality and Mercy in Vienna” (1959), “Low-Lands” (1960), “Entropy” (1960), and “Under the Rose” (1961—an early version of what became chapter 3 of V.). With the exception of “Mortality and Mercy in Vienna,” these stories appear in the 1984 collection Slow Learner, which also includes “The Secret Integration,” originally published in 1964. Two magazine publications, “The World (This One), the Flesh (Mrs. Oedipa Maas), and the Testament of Pierce Inverarity” (1965) and “The Shrink Flips” (1966), are excerpts from The Crying of Lot 49.
Pynchon has also published some pieces in The New York Times Book Review, including a 1984 meditation on distrust of technology (“Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?”), a 1988 review of Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, and a 1993 sketch, “Nearer, My Couch, to Thee,” on the sin of sloth (included in the collection Deadly Sins, by Pynchon and other hands). He has penned introductions or forewords to several works by other authors, including a reissue of Richard Fariña’s 1966 novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1983); a posthumous collection of writings by Donald Barthelme, The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme
(This entire section contains 256 words.)
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The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992); a reissue of Jim Dodge’s 1990 novel Stone Junction (1998); and a 2003 edition of George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984. Pynchon has also written liner notes for the albums Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones (1994) and Nobody’s Cool, by the rock group Lotion (1995).
Achievements
Among those contemporary novelists who enjoy both popular and academic followings, Thomas Pynchon stands out as a virtual cult figure. His novels and stories stand up to the most rigorous critical analysis; they prove, like all great works of art, to be the product of a gifted sensibility and careful craftsmanship. At the same time, Dr. Samuel Johnson’s “common reader” cheerfully wades through much abstruse matter because this author never fails to entertain—with bizarre plots, incandescent language, anarchic humor, and memorable characters.
Pynchon has an enormous, diverse, and fanatically loyal following. Many books, critical essays, and scholarly journal articles have been written on his work. Some of the fascination he holds for readers is derived from his reclusive habits. He has refused to be interviewed, photographed, or otherwise made into a darling of the mass media. Thirty years after the publication of his first novel, it finally became known that Pynchon makes his home in New York City.
Pynchon has been honored with a number of literary awards. He received the William Faulkner Foundation Award for V., the 1967 Rosenthal Foundation Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters for The Crying of Lot 49, and the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974. Though the judging committee unanimously voted to award the Pulitzer Prize in fiction to Pynchon for Gravity’s Rainbow, the committee was overruled by an advisory board that found the novel immoral and “turgid.” The Howells Medal, awarded once every five years, was offered to Pynchon in 1975, but he declined it.
Pynchon occupies a place in the front rank of twentieth and twenty-first century American fiction writers, and more than one distinguished critic has declared him America’s finest novelist.
Bibliography
Berressem, Hanjo. Pynchon’s Poetics: Interfacing Theory and Text. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. The most theoretically sophisticated treatment of Pynchon.
Birkerts, Sven. “Mapping the New Reality.” The Wilson Quarterly 16 (Spring, 1992): 102-110. Claims that the American novel has ceased to provide the reader with an encompassing, relevant, challenging picture of life as it is really experienced; suggests the reason is that the texture of contemporary life does not lend itself well to realism; discusses those fiction writers who have adopted strategies for galvanizing the chaos around us, such as Robert Stone, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Norman Mailer.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Thomas Pynchon. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. An extremely useful collection of essays on all aspects of Pynchon’s literary works. Contains essays of an introductory nature for first-time readers of Pynchon’s prose.
Chambers, Judith. Thomas Pynchon. New York: Twayne, 1992. A critical and interpretive examination of Pynchon’s work. Includes bibliographical references and an index.
Cowart, David. Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Allusion. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980. This book is one of the best volumes on Pynchon’s prodigious use of allusions in his prose. Useful chapters are included on the allusive functioning of music and cinema in Pynchon’s novels and short stories.
Diamond, Jamie. “The Mystery of Thomas Pynchon Leads Fans and Scholars on a Quest as Bizarre as His Plots.” People Weekly 33 (January 29, 1990): 64-66. A brief biographical sketch and discussion of Pynchon’s dropping out of sight in the 1960’s.
Dickson, David. The Utterance of America: Emersonian Newness in Dos Passos’ “U.S.A.” and Pynchon’s “Vineland.” Göteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1998. This comparison study includes a bibliography and an index.
Dugdale, John. Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables of Power. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Dugdale provides a critical review and interpretation of Pynchon’s work. He includes thorough bibliographical references and an index.
Grant, J. Kerry. A Companion to “The Crying of Lot 49.” Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. Glosses allusions and major themes. Bibliographical references and index.
Grant, J. Kerry. A Companion to “V.” Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001. A chapter-by-chapter close reading of V., explicating Pynchon’s allusions, summarizing critical interpretations, and providing a framework for understanding the work.
Green, Geoffrey, Donald J. Greiner, and Larry McCaffery, eds. The Vineland Papers: Critical Takes on Pynchon’s Novel. Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994. First-rate essays and a Vineland bibliography by thirteen scholars, including N. Katherine Hayles, David Porush, Molly Hite, and Stacey Olster.
Gussow, Mel. “Pynchon’s Letters Nudge His Mask.” The New York Times, March 4, 1998, p. E1. Discusses the insights into Pynchon’s creative process and emotions in more than 120 letters that he sent to his agent, Candida Donadio.
Hawthorne, Mark D. “Pynchon’s Early Labyrinths.” College Literature 25 (Spring, 1998): 78-93. Discusses Pynchon’s use of labyrinths in his early stories in the 1960’s; argues that while first using the labyrinth to describe escape from a confining middle-class marriage, Pynchon slowly turned it into a metaphor for the quest for self-awareness.
Horvath, Barbara, and Irving Malin, eds. Pynchon and “Mason and Dixon.” Delaware, 2000. A book-length study of Pynchon’s fifth novel.
Hume, Kathryn. Pynchon’s Mythography: An Approach to “Gravity’s Rainbow.” Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. This excellent book examines in detail Pynchon’s use of myths and legends in Gravity’s Rainbow. The comments are also applicable to the rest of his prose works. The range of Pynchon’s mythography extends from the grail and Faust legends to non-Western myths.
Levine, George, and David Leverenz, eds. Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976. A useful selection of essays on Pynchon’s prose. The essays on Pynchon’s use of scientific theories and terminology are particularly valuable in understanding the novel Gravity’s Rainbow and the short story “Entropy.”
McHoul, Alec, and David Wills. Writing Pynchon: Strategies in Fictional Analysis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Although the authors rely heavily on deconstructive critical methods, the book includes an interesting discussion (pages 131 to 160) of Pynchon’s introduction to his collection of short stories Slow Learner.
Mattessich, Stefan. Lines of Flight: Discursive Time and Countercultural Desire in the Work of Thomas Pynchon. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003. Explores the ways in which Pynchon’s critique of late capitalist society describes the emergence of a new conceptualization of time, which Mattessich calls “subjective displacement.”
Sales, Nancy Jo. “Meet Your Neighbor, Thomas Pynchon.” New York 29 (November 11, 1996): 60-64. Discusses Pynchon’s almost mythical status; comments on his popularity in the 1970’s and his subsequent reclusiveness.
Schaub, Thomas. Pynchon: The Voice of Ambiguity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981. A reliable account of how entropy and uncertainty figure in Pynchon. Includes discussion of Marshall McLuhan’s influence on The Crying of Lot 49 and the ironies attendant on Ivan Pavlov’s role in Gravity’s Rainbow. Places Pynchon in American literary tradition.
Slade, Joseph. Thomas Pynchon. New York: P. Lang, 1990. The first book on Pynchon (it originally appeared in 1974) and still one of the best. A balanced and readable discussion, but especially strong on Pynchon’s uses of science. Lack of an index reduces usefulness to the browser.
Weisenburger, S. C. A “Gravity’s Rainbow” Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988. This volume is an extraordinarily detailed encyclopedia of the sources for the allusions used in Pynchon’s novel. Since several of the characters from Pynchon’s short stories reappear in Gravity’s Rainbow, this book is useful in order to trace the influence that Pynchon’s short stories have had on his novels.