Pynchon and History: Metahistorical Rhetoric and Postmodern Narrative Form in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon (Studies in Major Literary Authors)
Just One More Page... (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
This month Wendy supplied us with a list of first lines and asks which books we’ve read and which would make it to our tbr list on the basis of the first line. Bold = the books I’ve read Pink = tbr pile 1. Call me Ishmael. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen, Pride...
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Here comes the annual onslaught of year-end “best books” lists, beginning with Publishers Weekly . There’s plenty of controversy surrounding the fact that none of the titles on PW ’s top-10 rundown was written by a woman . But what’s lost in all of that is the fact that so many choices in the Fiction and Mystery categories are crime fiction: Michael Connelly’s The...
Wired: Underwire (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
What keeps The Simpsons humming after 20 years of animated antics? A “brilliant concept,” hard work, characters that never age and a cavalcade of high-octane guest stars, according to the show’s longtime producer Al Jean. Working with brainy guests like Stephen Hawking and Thomas Pynchon — just two of the hundreds of actors, musicians and other [...]
TED BURKE, like it or not (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Steinbeck is of the generation that arrives just after the Muckrakers,Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, Sinclair Lewis, who thought that fiction was something of a sociological/anthropological tool in getting at the skewed relations between races and classes in a capitalist economy. Some larger truth, discovered by a focus imagination, could get beyond supposition and provide the correct vision for reform....
The Millions (A Blog About Books) (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Today arrives Barbara Kingsolver’s latest, Lacuna, “an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover.” Also out are a couple more of those nifty “Olive Editions” from HarperCollins, this time of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 [...]
Foma* (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Books Bought none Books Read Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon Comments Thomas Pynchon is one of the great enigmatic writers of the modern era. While I made it through V many years ago, Gravity's Rainbow has always been too much to complete. His more recent work like Mason and Dixon have been even less accessible. When I heard that his latest novel, Inherent Vice (some sort of legal pun) was a straight...
Thumb drives and oven clocks (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
There are points, scattered throughout Inherent Vice , when you realize that, yes, of course, Thomas Pynchon had to write a mystery novel, a-doy . Because, you know, paranoia? and like, connections? Dig?
Thumb drives and oven clocks (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
"Man, did you miss a big story," he greeted Doc. "You too, man." "I'm talkin about sets of fifty-foot waves that wouldn't quit." "'Fifty,' huh. I'm takin about Charlie Manson gettin popped." They looked at each other. "On the face of it," Vehi Fairfield said finally, "two separate worlds, each unaware of the other. But they always connect someplace."...
Bookgasm (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
Thomas Pynchon is one of America’s greatest living writers. His THE CRYING OF LOT 49 should be required teaching in high school, and his MASON & DIXON is one of the truly great underrated masterpieces. But his recent dip into genre fiction, INHERENT VICE, may lead some readers to worry: Will it be as literarily [...]
Eco-Geekery (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
I’m reading Thomas Pynchon’s latest, Inherent Vice. I’ve loved the guy ever since, on my fifth attempt to read Gravity’s Rainbow, I let go of any allegiance to actually processing the plot, expectations of narrative arc, or keeping the mad panacopia of characters straight, and just let the damn text wash across my cerebral cortex. As [...]
TakePart Social Action Network™ (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
I’ve just returned from the post office. Ostensibly, I was mailing a toner cartridge back to the manufacturer for recycling. However, as I confessed to Dave — the friend I ran into along the way — I was just using the errand as an excuse to wander around a bit. I awoke this morning with an itch to write, but it was more of an all-over tingling sensation, rather a specified spot that...
Erasing.org (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
William Gibson, All Tomorrow’s Parties : Rydell couldn’t figure out a way to skip the approach segment, which was monolithic, vaguely Egyptian, and reminded him of what his buddy Sublett, a film buff, had called “corridor metaphysics.” [ CONTINUE READING » ] tags: William Gibson , All Tomorrow's Parties , Thomas Pynchon , Gravity's Rainbow , corridor , corridor metaphysics...
Bibliophile Stalker (Free subscription) | 10/25/2009
Every Monday, I'll be doing bite-sized book/magazine reviews. Disclosure: The publisher sent a review copy for the purposes of this review. The Secret History of Science Fiction -- sounds like the title of a blockbuster movie or exhaustive nonfiction book but this is, in fact, an anthology that features stories that bridge the literary vs. genre divide, or "li-fi" as Orson Scott Card would...
Marginal Revolution (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
One of the recent reader requests is to give my opinion of him. It's pretty simple. The first half or so of Gravity's Rainbow is extraordinary. V is a superb novel, his most consistent work, and it is best read...
Circle of 13 (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
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