Pynchon and the Political

by Thomas; Samuel

• ISBN13: 9780415956468
• ISBN10: 0415956463
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-14
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Thomas Pynchon's writing has been widely regarded as an exemplary form of postmodern fiction. It is characterized as genre-defying and enigmatic, as a series of complex and esoteric language games. This study attempts to demonstrate, however, that an oblique yet compelling sense of the 'political' Pynchon disappers all too easily under the mantle of postmodernity. Innovative and unsettling discussions of freedom, war, labor, poverty, community, democracy, and totalitarianism are passed over in favour of constrictive scientific metaphors and theoretical play. Against this current, this study analyzes Pynchon's fiction in terms of its radical dimension, showing how it points to new directions in the relationship between the political and the aesthetic.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Text-Politics-Criticism-Methodology	p. 1
Retro-Vertigo: Escaping the Enlightenment in Mason & Dixon	p. 19
Blank Checks: Invisibility and Economy in Mason & Dixon	p. 41
Theatre of Operations: Surgery, War and Questing in V. and Gravity's Rainbow	p. 63
Memento-Mori: War-Life and War-Experience in Gravity's Rainbow and V.	p. 87
(What's so Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding? Resistance vs. Withdrawal in The Crying of Lot 49	p. 109
Sir Yes Sir! Doing It To Yourself and Doing It For Yourself in Vineland	p. 131
Conclusion: Pynchon-Politics-Everybody	p. 151
Notes	p. 157
Bibliography	p. 187
Index	p. 195
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