Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon in 1957, one of the few photographs of him ever to be published
Born	May 8, 1937 (1937-05-08) (age 71) Glen Cove, New York
Occupation	Short story writer and novelist
Nationality	American

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. Events 589 - Reccared summons the Third Council of Toledo 1450 - Jack Cade's Rebellion: Kentishmen Year 1937 ( MCMXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Glen Cove is a city in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty The United States of America —commonly referred to as the (born May 8, 1937) is an American writer based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Events 589 - Reccared summons the Third Council of Toledo 1450 - Jack Cade's Rebellion: Kentishmen Year 1937 ( MCMXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. American literature refers to written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and Colonial America. The City of New York Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. Long Island is an island located in southeastern New York, USA, its western shores directly across from Manhattan, from which the island stretches English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of Literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known today: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006). The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story V is the debut Novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U The Crying of Lot 49 ( 1966) is a Novel by the Author Thomas Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973. Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a Postmodern tale of life in the 1980s United States. Mason & Dixon, an epic postmodernist novel by Thomas Pynchon first published in 1997 centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately

Pynchon (pronounced /ˈpɪntʃɒn/, with /ˈpɪntʃən/ a common mispronunciation) is regarded by many readers and critics as one of the finest contemporary authors. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship (sometimes Nicknamed the "genius grant") is an award given by the John D The National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred Both his fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, styles and themes, including (but not limited to) the fields of history, science and mathematics. A literary genre is a category of literary composition Genres may be determined by Literary technique, tone, Content, or even (as in the case of fiction A theme, from Old French tesme, is a broad idea in a story or literary work or a message or lesson conveyed by a written text History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Pynchon is also known for his avoidance of personal publicity: very few photographs of him have ever been published, and rumours about his location and identity have been circulated since the 1960s. Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject Whilst the acronym PII is commonly used there is no common or agreed use of the words from which it is created

Biography

Thomas Pynchon was born in 1937 in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, one of three children of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Sr. Glen Cove is a city in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. Long Island is an island located in southeastern New York, USA, its western shores directly across from Manhattan, from which the island stretches New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous (1907 – 1995) and Katherine Frances Bennett (1909 – 1996). His earliest American ancestor, William Pynchon, emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, and thereafter a long line of Pynchon descendants found wealth and repute on American soil. William Pynchon ( October 11, 1590 &ndash October 29, 1662) was a colonial Assistant, Treasurer and original The Massachusetts Bay Colony (sometimes called the Massachusetts Bay Company, for the institution that founded it was an English settlement on the east coast of North America The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 (an early part of the Great Migration) was the largest fleet ever assembled to carry Englishmen overseas to a new homeland Pynchon's family background and aspects of his ancestry have provided source material for his fictions, particularly in the Slothrop family histories related in "The Secret Integration" (1964) and Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973.

Childhood and education

Pynchon attended Oyster Bay High School, where he was awarded "student of the year" and contributed short fictional pieces to his school newspaper (Pynchon 1952-3). This article refers to the hamlet. For the town in Nassau County, New York, see Town of Oyster Bay New York. Oyster Bay High School is a high school located in Oyster Bay, New York. These juvenilia incorporated some of the literary motifs and recurring subject matter he would use throughout his career: oddball names, sophomoric humour, illicit drug use and paranoia.

After graduating from high school in 1953 at the age of 16, Pynchon studied engineering physics at Cornell University, but left at the end of his second year to serve in the U.S. Navy. Engineering physics (EP is an Academic degree, available mainly at the levels of B In 1957, he returned to Cornell to pursue a degree in English. His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in May 1959, and narrates an actual experience of a friend who had served in the army; subsequently, however, episodes and characters throughout Pynchon's fiction draw freely upon his own experiences in the navy. The United States Army is a military organization whose primary mission is to "provide necessary forces and capabilities.

While at Cornell, Pynchon started his life-long friendship with Richard Fariña; Pynchon would go on to dedicate "Gravity's Rainbow" to Fariña, as well as serve as his best man and as his pallbearer. Richard George Fariña ( March 8, 1937 &ndash April 30, 1966) was an American Writer and Folksinger. Together the two briefly led what Pynchon has called a "micro-cult" around Oakley Hall's 1958 novel Warlock. Oakley Maxwell Hall ( July 1, 1920 – May 12, 2008) was an American Novelist. The year 1958 in literature involved some significant events and new books (He later reminisced about his college days in the introduction he wrote in 1983 for Fariña's novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, first published in 1966. Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me is a Novel by Richard Fariña. ) Pynchon also reportedly attended lectures given by Vladimir Nabokov, who then taught literature at Cornell. This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. While Nabokov later said that he had no memory of Pynchon (although Nabokov's wife, Véra, who graded her husband's class papers, commented that she remembered his distinctive handwriting - comprised of a mixture of printed and cursive letters), other teachers at Cornell, such as the novelist James McConkey, recall him as being a gifted and exceptional student. For the indie rock band see Cursive (band. Cursive is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing down notes and In 1958, Pynchon and Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale wrote part or all of a science-fiction musical, Minstral Island, which portrayed a dystopian future in which IBM rules the world (Gibbs 1994). Kirkpatrick Sale ( Ithaca New York 1937 is an Independent scholar and Author who has written prolifically on Environmentalism, technology and International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Pynchon received his BA in June 1959.

Early career

V.

Main article: V.

After leaving Cornell, Pynchon began to work on his first novel. V is the debut Novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U From February 1960 to September 1962, he was employed as a technical writer at Boeing in Seattle, where he compiled safety articles for the Bomarc Service News (see Wisnicki 2000-1), a support newsletter for the BOMARC surface-to-air missile deployed by the U.S. Air Force. The Boeing Company is a major Aerospace and defense corporation originally founded by William E The CIM-10 Bomarc (originally IM-99) was the product of the Bomarc Missile Program. Pynchon's experiences at Boeing inspired his depictions of the "Yoyodyne" corporation in V. and The Crying of Lot 49, and both his background in physics and the technical journalism he undertook at Boeing provided much raw material for Gravity's Rainbow. Yoyodyne is the name of several companies both in fiction and real life V is the debut Novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U The Crying of Lot 49 ( 1966) is a Novel by the Author Thomas Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973. When it was published in 1963, Pynchon's novel V. The year 1963 in literature involved some significant events and new books won a William Faulkner Foundation Award for best first novel of the year. The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the author of the best American work of fiction that year

After resigning from Boeing, Pynchon spent time in New York and Mexico before moving to California, where he was reportedly based for much of the 1960s and early 1970s, most notably in an apartment in Manhattan Beach (see Frost 2003), as he was composing his most highly regarded work, Gravity's Rainbow. Manhattan Beach is a city located in southwestern Los Angeles County California, USA. Pynchon during this time flirted with the lifestyle and some of the habits of the hippie counterculture (see, for example, Gordon 1994); however, his retrospective assessment of the motives, values and achievements of the student and youth milieux of the period, in his 1984 'Introduction' to the Slow Learner collection of early stories and the novel Vineland (1990) in particular, is equivocal at best. The Hippie Subculture was originally a Youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world Counterculture (also " counter-culture " is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a Cultural group, or Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of six early Novellas by the American Novelist Thomas Pynchon. Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a Postmodern tale of life in the 1980s United States.

In 1964, an application to study mathematics as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, was turned down (Royster 2005). The University of California Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, Berkeley and UC Berkeley) is a major research university located in Berkeley In 1966, Pynchon wrote a first-hand report on the aftermath and legacy of the Watts riots in Los Angeles. The term Watts Riots refers to a large-scale Race riot which lasted six days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles California, in August Entitled "A Journey Into the Mind of Watts," the article was published in the New York Times Magazine (Pynchon 1966). The New York Times Magazine is a supplement to the Sunday The New York Times newspaper

From the mid-1960s Pynchon has also regularly provided blurbs and introductions for a wide range of novels and non-fiction works. A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work usually referring to the words on the back of the Book but also commonly seen on DVD One of the first of these pieces was a brief review of Hall's Warlock which appeared, along with comments by seven other writers on "neglected books", as part of a feature entitled "A Gift of Books" in the December 1965 issue of Holiday.

The Crying of Lot 49

Main article: The Crying of Lot 49

Pynchon created the "muted post horn" as a symbol for the secret "Trystero" society in The Crying of Lot 49. The Crying of Lot 49 ( 1966) is a Novel by the Author Thomas Pynchon.

In an April 1964 letter to his agent, Candida Donadio, Pynchon wrote that he was facing a creative crisis, with four novels in progress, announcing: "If they come out on paper anything like they are inside my head then it will be the literary event of the millennium. " (see Gussow 1998) In December 1965, Pynchon politely turned down an invitation from Stanley Edgar Hyman to teach literature at Bennington College, writing that he had resolved, two or three years earlier, to write three novels at once. Stanley Edgar Hyman (1919–1970 was a Literary critic who wrote primarily about critical methods the distinct strategies critics use in approaching literary texts Pynchon described the decision as "a moment of temporary insanity," but noted that he was "too stubborn to let any of them go, let alone all of them. " (see McLemee 2006)

Pynchon's second novel, The Crying of Lot 49, was published a few months later in 1966. Whether it was one of the three or four novels Pynchon had in progress is unknown, but in a 1965 letter to Donadio, Pynchon had written that he was in the middle of writing a book that he called a "potboiler. " When the book grew to 155 pages, he called it, "a short story, but with gland trouble," and hoped that Donadio could "unload it on some poor sucker. " (Gussow 1998)

The Crying of Lot 49 won the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award shortly after publication. Although more concise and linear in its structure than Pynchon's other novels, its labyrinthine plot features an ancient, underground mail service known as "The Tristero" or "Trystero," a parody of a Jacobean revenge drama entitled "The Courier's Tragedy," and a corporate conspiracy involving the bones of World War II American GIs being used as charcoal cigarette filters. The revenge play or revenge tragedy is a form of Tragedy which was extremely popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras The best-known of these World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including For other uses of GI see GI GI or GI is a term describing members of the U A cigarette filter has the purpose of reducing the amount of smoke tar, and fine particles inhaled during the Combustion of a Cigarette. It proposes a series of seemingly incredible interconnections between these and other similarly bizarre revelations that confront the novel's protagonist, Oedipa Maas. Like V. , the novel contains a wealth of references to science and technology and to obscure historical events, and both books dwell upon the detritus of American society and culture. The Crying of Lot 49 also continues Pynchon's habit of composing parodic song lyrics and punning names, and referencing aspects of popular culture within his prose narrative. Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — In particular, it incorporates a very direct allusion to the protagonist of Nabokov's Lolita within the lyric of a love lament sung by a member of 'The Paranoids', a teenage band who deliberately sing their songs with British accents. The Crying of Lot 49 ( 1966) is a Novel by the Author Thomas Pynchon. Lolita (1955 is a Novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, later translated by the author

In 1968, Pynchon was one of 447 signatories to the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest. " Full-page advertisements in The New York Post and The New York Review of Books listed the names of those who had pledged not to pay "the proposed 10% income tax surcharge or any war-designated tax increase," and stated their belief "that American involvement in Vietnam is morally wrong" (New York Review of Books 1968:9). The New York Post is the 13th-oldest Newspaper published in the United States and generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continually The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly Magazine on Literature, Culture, and current

Gravity's Rainbow

Main article: Gravity's Rainbow

Pynchon's most celebrated novel is his third, Gravity's Rainbow, published in 1973. Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973. Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973. The year 1973 in literature involved some significant events and new books An intricate and allusive fiction that combines and elaborates on many of the themes of his earlier work, including preterition, paranoia, racism, colonialism, conspiracy, synchronicity, and entropy, the novel has spawned a wealth of commentary and critical material, including two reader's guides (Fowler 1980; Weisenburger 1988), books and scholarly articles, online concordances and discussions, and art works, and is regarded as one of the archetypal texts of American literary postmodernism. Paranoia is a disturbed thought process characterized by excessive Anxiety or Fear, often to the point of Irrationality and Delusion. List of racism-related topics|Racism by country Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism A conspiracy theory attributes the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually Political, Social or Historical events or the concealment Synchronicity is the Experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner In Thermodynamics (a branch of Physics) entropy, symbolized by S, is a measure of the unavailability of a system ’s Energy The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post- World War II literature The major portion of Gravity's Rainbow takes place in London and Europe in the final months of the Second World War and the weeks immediately following VE Day, and is narrated for the most part from within the historical moment in which it is set. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Victory in Europe Day ( V-E Day or VE Day) was May 7 and May 8, 1945, the dates when the World War II Allies In this way, Pynchon's text enacts a type of dramatic irony whereby neither the characters nor the various narrative voices are aware of specific historical circumstances, such as the Holocaust, which are, however, very much to the forefront of the reader's understanding of this time in history. Irony is a literary or Rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or Discordance between what one says or does and what one means or A narrator (or the extremely rarely used female equivalent narratress) is within any story (literary work movie play verbal account etc The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as Such an approach generates dynamic tension and moments of acute self-consciousness, as both reader and author seem drawn ever deeper into the "plot", in various senses of that term. Mythos (Aristotle In literature the plot comprises all the events in a story particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular Artistic or Emotional

Encyclopedic in scope and often playfully self-conscious in style, the novel displays impressive erudition in its treatment of an array of material drawn from the fields of psychology, chemistry, mathematics, history, religion, music, literature and film. Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter Perhaps appropriately for a book so suffused with engineering knowledge, Pynchon wrote the first draft of Gravity's Rainbow in "neat, tiny script on engineer's quadrille paper" (Weisenburger 1988). Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and Format and availability of graph paper Graph paper is available either as Loose leaf paper or bound in Notebooks It is becoming Pynchon worked on the novel throughout the 1960s and early 1970s while he was living in California and Mexico City, and was evidently making changes and additions to the manuscript right up to the date of printing.

Gravity's Rainbow was a joint winner of the 1974 National Book Award for Fiction, along with Isaac Bashevis Singer's A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. The National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Isaac Bashevis Singer (יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער (November 21 1902 (see notes below – July 24 1991 was a Nobel Prize -winning Polish -born In the same year, the fiction jury unanimously recommended Gravity's Rainbow for the Pulitzer Prize; however, the Pulitzer board vetoed the jury's recommendation, describing the novel as "unreadable", "turgid", "overwritten", and in parts "obscene", and no prize was awarded (Kihss 1974). The Pulitzer Prize, ˈpʊlɨtsɚ PULL-it-sər is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in Newspaper journalism, In 1975, Pynchon declined the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The William Dean Howells Medal is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Post-Gravity's Rainbow

A collection of Pynchon's early short stories, entitled Slow Learner, was published in 1984, with a lengthy autobiographical introduction. Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of six early Novellas by the American Novelist Thomas Pynchon. The year 1984 in literature involved some significant events and new books An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write" In October of the same year, an article entitled "Is It O. K. to Be a Luddite?" was published in the New York Times Book Review. The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed In April 1988, Pynchon contributed an extensive review of Gabriel García Márquez's novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, to the New York Times, under the title "The Heart's Eternal Vow". Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera is a novel by Nobel Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez Another article, entitled "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee", was published in June 1993 in the New York Times Book Review, as one in a series of articles in which various writers reflected on each of the Seven Deadly Sins. The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, are a classification of Vices that were originally used in early Christian Pynchon's subject was "Sloth". The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, are a classification of Vices that were originally used in early Christian

Vineland

Main article: Vineland

Pynchon's fourth novel, Vineland, was published in 1990, but disappointed some fans and critics. Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a Postmodern tale of life in the 1980s United States. Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a Postmodern tale of life in the 1980s United States. It did, however, receive some positive reviews, notably from Salman Rushdie (1990). The novel is set in California in the 1980s and 1960s, and describes the relationship between an FBI COINTELPRO agent and a female radical filmmaker. COINTELPRO (an acronym for Co unter Intel ligence Pro gram was a series of covert and often illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau Its strong socio-political undercurrents detail the constant battle between authoritarianism and communalism, and the nexus between resistance and complicity, but with a typically Pynchonian sense of humor. Authoritarianism describes a Form of government characterized by an emphasis on the Authority of the State in a republic or union See also Communalism (South Asia. In many parts of the world communalism is a modern term that describes a broad range of Social movements A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups dedicated to fighting an Invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign nation

In 1988, he received a MacArthur Fellowship and, since the early 1990s at least, many observers have mentioned Pynchon as a Nobel Prize contender (see, for example, Grimes 1993; CNN Book News 1999; Ervin 2000). The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship (sometimes Nicknamed the "genius grant") is an award given by the John D The Nobel Prize (Nobelpriset (Nobelprisen is a Swedish prize established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Peace, Literature Renowned American literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Cormac McCarthy. Harold Bloom' (born July 11, 1930) is a Literary critic. Bloom defended 19th-century Romantic poets at a time when their reputations Don DeLillo (born November 20 1936 is an American author best known for his Novels which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries Philip Milton Roth (born March 19, 1933, Newark New Jersey) is an American novelist Cormac McCarthy, born Charles McCarthy (born July 20, 1933 in Providence Rhode Island) is an American Novelist and

Mason & Dixon

Main article: Mason & Dixon

Pynchon's fifth novel, Mason & Dixon, was published in 1997, though it had been a work in progress from at least January 1975 (Ulin 1997; see also Gussow 1998). Mason & Dixon, an epic postmodernist novel by Thomas Pynchon first published in 1997 centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason Mason & Dixon, an epic postmodernist novel by Thomas Pynchon first published in 1997 centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason The meticulously-researched novel is a sprawling postmodernist saga recounting the lives and careers of the English astronomer, Charles Mason, and his partner, the surveyor Jeremiah Dixon, the surveyors of the Mason-Dixon line, during the birth of the American Republic. The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post- World War II literature Charles Mason ( Oakridge Lynch Gloucestershire, April 1728&ndash Philadelphia, October 25, 1786) was an English Astronomer Jeremiah Dixon ( Cockfield County Durham July 27 1733 &ndash Cockfield County Durham January 22 1779) was an English The Mason–Dixon Line (or "Mason and Dixon's Line" is a Demarcation line between four U In this article the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies that supported the American Revolution are primarily referred to as "Americans" with occasional references to "Patriots" While it received some negative reviews, the great majority of commentators acknowledged it as a welcome return to form, and some have hailed it as Pynchon's greatest work.

Against the Day

Main article: Against the Day

A variety of rumors pertaining to the subject matter of Pynchon's next book circulated over a number of years. Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately Most specific of these were comments made by the former German minister of culture, Michael Naumann, who stated that he assisted Pynchon in his research about "a Russian mathematician [who] studied for David Hilbert in Göttingen", and that the new novel would trace the life and loves of Sofia Kovalevskaya. Michael Naumann (born 8 December 1941 in Köthen (Anhalt) is a German politician publisher and journalist David Hilbert ( January 23, 1862 &ndash February 14, 1943) was a German Mathematician, recognized as one of the most Göttingen ( ˈgœtɪŋən, Low German: Chöttingen is a College town in Lower Saxony, Germany. Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (Софья Васильевна Ковалевская

In July 2006, a new untitled novel by Pynchon was announced along with a synopsis written by Pynchon himself, which appeared on Amazon.com, it stated that the novel's action takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately following World War I. Amazoncom Inc ( is an American electronic commerce ( E-commerce) company in Seattle Washington. The World's Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago World's Fair) a World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead," Pynchon wrote in his book description, "it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work usually referring to the words on the back of the Book but also commonly seen on DVD No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred. " He promised cameos by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi and Groucho Marx, as well as "stupid songs" and "strange sexual practices". There have already been discussions about Tesla's ethnicity on the talk page Béla Lugosi (October 20 1882 &ndash August 16 1956 was an iconic Hungarian stage and film actor best known for his portrayal of Count Dracula in the American Subsequently, the title of the new book was reported to be Against the Day and a Penguin spokesperson confirmed that the synopsis was Pynchon's (Pynchon 2006a; Patterson 2006ab; Italie 2006). Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately

Against the Day was released November 21, 2006 and is 1,085 pages long in the first edition hardcover. Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately Events 164 BC - Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family restores the Temple in Jerusalem. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The book was given almost no promotion by Penguin and professional book reviewers were given little time in advance to review the book, presumably in accord with Pynchon's wishes. An edited version of Pynchon's synopsis was used as the jacket flap copy and Kovalevskaya does appear, although as only one of over a hundred characters.

Composed predominantly of a series of interwoven pastiches of popular fiction genres from the era in which it is set, the novel inspired a mixed reaction from critics and reviewers, though many acknowledge that it is by turns brilliant and exhausting (Complete Review 2006). Some made the point that this was the culmination of Pynchon's career and a summation of his personal philosophy. An Against the Day wiki was launched on the same day the novel was published to help readers keep track of the numerous characters, events and themes.

Themes

Along with its emphasis on loftier themes such as racism, imperialism and religion, and its cognizance and appropriation of many elements of traditional high culture and literary form, Pynchon's work also demonstrates a strong affinity with the practitioners and artifacts of low culture, including comic books and cartoons, pulp fiction, popular films, television programs, cookery, urban myths, conspiracy theories, and folk art. List of racism-related topics|Racism by country Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that Imperialism has two meanings one describing an action and the other describing an attitude A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos High culture is a term now used in a number of different ways in Academic discourse whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products mainly in the Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter Low culture is a Derogatory term for some forms of Popular culture. A comic book (often shortened to simply comic and sometimes called a comic paper or comic magazine) is a Magazine or Book of narrative An animated cartoon is a short hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn Film for the cinema, Television or computer Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps" were inexpensive Fiction magazines Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic Cooking is the process of preparing Food by applying Heat, selecting measuring and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible An urban legend or urban myth is a form of modern Folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them A conspiracy theory attributes the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually Political, Social or Historical events or the concealment Folk art describes a wide range of objects that reflect the Craft traditions and traditional social values of various social groups This blurring of the conventional boundary between "High" and "low" culture, sometimes interpreted as a "deconstruction", is seen as one of the defining characteristics of postmodernism. Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in

In particular, Pynchon has revealed himself in his fiction and non-fiction as an aficionado of popular music. Popular music is Music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more Song lyrics and mock musical numbers appear in each of his novels, and, in his autobiographical introduction to the Slow Learner collection of early stories, he reveals a fondness for both jazz and rock and roll. Musical theatre is a form of Theatre combining Music, Songs spoken Dialogue and Dance. Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of six early Novellas by the American Novelist Thomas Pynchon. Jazz is an American Musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States Rock and roll (also known as rock 'n' roll) is a form of Music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s with roots in mostly African The character McClintic Sphere in V. is a fictional composite of jazz musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. Ornette Coleman (born March 9, 1930) is an American saxophonist Violinist Trumpeter and Composer. Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz Pianist and Composer. In The Crying of Lot 49, the lead singer of "The Paranoids" sports "a Beatle haircut" and sings with an English accent. The Beatles were a pop and rock band from Liverpool, England formed in 1960 In the closing pages of Gravity's Rainbow, there is an apocryphal report that Tyrone Slothrop, the novel's protagonist, played kazoo and harmonica as a guest musician on a record released by The Fool in the 1960s (having magically recovered the latter instrument, his "harp", in a German stream in 1945, after losing it down the toilet in 1939 at the Roseland Ballroom in Roxbury, Boston, to the strains of the jazz standard 'Cherokee', upon which tune Charlie Parker was simultaneously inventing bebop in New York, as Pynchon describes). The kazoo is a simple Musical instrument ( Membranophone) that adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when one vocalizes into it A harmonica is a free reed Wind instrument which is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes (reed chambers or The Fool were a Dutch design collective and band who were influential in the Psychedelic style Magic realism, or magical realism, is an artistic Genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal" Blues harp, also called a richter tuned harmonica or 10-hole harmonica (in Asia is the most widely known type of Harmonica. Roxbury is a neighborhood within Boston, Massachusetts USA It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and became a Bebop or bop is a form of Jazz characterized by fast Tempos and Improvisation based on Harmonic structure rather than Melody In Vineland, both Zoyd Wheeler and Isaiah Two Four are also musicians: Zoyd played keyboards in a '60s surf band called "The Corvairs", while Isaiah played in a punk band called "Billy Barf and the Vomitones". Surf music is a Genre of Popular music associated with Surf culture, particularly Orange County and other areas of Southern California In Mason & Dixon, one of the characters plays on the "Clavier" the varsity drinking song which will later become "The Star-Spangled Banner"; whilst in another episode a character remarks tangentially "Sometimes, it's hard to be a woman". " The Star-Spangled Banner " is the National anthem of the United States of America " Stand by Your Man " is a 1968 song cowritten by Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill and sung by Tammy Wynette

In his Slow Learner introduction, Pynchon acknowledges a debt to the anarchic bandleader Spike Jones, and in 1994, he penned a 3000-word set of liner notes for the album Spiked!, a collection of Jones's recordings released on the short-lived BMG Catalyst label. Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of six early Novellas by the American Novelist Thomas Pynchon. Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones ( December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was a popular musician and bandleader specializing in performing For a bibliographic format for citing liner notes see WikipediaCiting sources/example style Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes Pynchon also wrote the liner notes for Nobody's Cool, the second album of indie rock band Lotion, in which he states that "rock and roll remains one of the last honorable callings, and a working band is a miracle of everyday life. Indie rock is genre of Alternative rock that primarily exists in the independent Underground music scene Lotion was a Manhattan quartet started in 1991 by brothers Bill and Jim Ferguson, Tony Zajkowski, and Rob Youngberg. Which is basically what these guys do. " He is also known to be a fan of Roky Erickson. Roky Erickson (born Roger Kynard Erickson on July 15 1947) is an American Singer, Songwriter, Harmonica

Investigations and digressions into the realms of human sexuality, psychology, sociology, mathematics, science, and technology recur throughout Pynchon's works. Generally speaking human sexuality is how people experience and express themselves as sexual beings Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt One of his earliest short stories, "Low-lands" (1960), features a meditation on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as a metaphor for telling stories about one's own experiences. Werner Heisenberg (5 December 1901 in Würzburg &ndash1 February 1976 in Munich) was a German theoretical physicist best known for enunciating the In Quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that locating a particle in a small region of space makes the Momentum of the particle uncertain His next published work, "Entropy" (1960), introduced the concept which was to become synonymous with Pynchon's name (though Pynchon later admitted the "shallowness of [his] understanding" of the subject, and noted that choosing an abstract concept first and trying to construct a narrative around it was "a lousy way to go about writing a story"). In Thermodynamics (a branch of Physics) entropy, symbolized by S, is a measure of the unavailability of a system ’s Energy Another early story, "Under the Rose" (1961), includes amongst its cast of characters a cyborg set anachronistically in Victorian-era Egypt (a type of writing now called steampunk). A cyborg is a Cybernetic Organism ( ie, an organism that has both artificial and natural systems Culture The Victorian fascination with novelty resulted in a deep interest in the relationship between modernity and cultural continuities This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and Speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s This story, significantly reworked by Pynchon, appears as Chapter 3 of V. "The Secret Integration" (1964), Pynchon's last published short story, is a sensitively-handled coming-of-age tale in which a group of young boys face the consequences of the American policy of racial integration. Coming of age is a young person's transition from Adolescence to Adulthood The age at which this transition takes place varies in society as does the nature Racial integration, or simply integration includes Desegregation (the process of ending systematic Racial segregation) At one point in the story, the boys attempt to understand the new policy by way of the mathematical operation, the only sense of the word with which they are familiar. In Calculus, an antiderivative, primitive or indefinite integral of a function f is a function F whose Derivative

The Crying of Lot 49 also alludes to entropy and communication theory, and contains scenes and descriptions which parody or appropriate calculus, Zeno's paradoxes, and the thought experiment known as Maxwell's demon. There is much discussion in the academic world of Communication as to what actually constitutes communication Calculus ( Latin, calculus, a small stone used for counting is a branch of Mathematics that includes the study of limits, Derivatives A thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is a proposal for an Experiment that would test a Hypothesis or Theory Maxwell's demon was an 1867 Thought experiment by the Scottish Physicist James Clerk Maxwell, meant to raise questions about the possibility At the same time, the novel also investigates homosexuality, celibacy and both medically-sanctioned and illicit psychedelic drug use. Homosexuality refers to sexual behavior with or attraction to people of the same sex or to a Homosexual orientation. Celibacy refers to the lack of participation in Sexual intercourse. Psychedelic drugs are Psychoactive drugs whose primary action is to alter the thought processes of the brain and perception of the mind Gravity's Rainbow describes many varieties of sexual fetishism (including sado-masochism, coprophilia and a borderline case of tentacle rape), and features numerous episodes of drug use, most notably marijuana but also cocaine, naturally occurring hallucinogens, and the mushroom Amanita muscaria. Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the Sexual attraction to materials and objects not conventionally viewed as being sexual in nature Sadism refers to Sexual or non-sexual gratification in the infliction of Pain or humiliation upon or by another person Coprophilia (from Greek κόπρος kópros - excrement and φιλία filía - liking fondness) also called scat, is the Paraphilia Cannabis, also known as marijuana or marihuana, or ganja (from Hindi / Sanskrit: गांजा gānjā hemp) is a Cocaine ( benzoylmethyl ecgonine) is a Crystalline Tropane Alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the Coca plant The general group of pharmacological agents commonly known as hallucinogens can be divided into three broad categories Psychedelics, Dissociatives Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita is a poisonous and Psychoactive Basidiomycete Fungus, Gravity's Rainbow also derives much from Pynchon's background in mathematics: at one point, the geometry of garter belts is compared with that of cathedral spires, both described as mathematical singularities. This article is about the history and organisation of the cathedral In Mathematics, a singularity is in general a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined or a point of an exceptional set where it fails to be Mason & Dixon explores the scientific, theological, and socio-cultural foundations of the Age of Reason whilst also depicting the relationships between actual historical figures and fictional characters in intricate detail and, like Gravity's Rainbow, is an archetypal example of the genre of historiographic metafiction. The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century Historiographic metafiction is a term originally coined by literary theorist Linda Hutcheon.

Influence

An eclectic catalogue of Pynchonian precursors has been proposed by readers and critics. Beside overt references in the novels to writers as disparate as Henry Adams, Giorgio de Chirico, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Emily Dickinson, William March, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jorge Luis Borges, Ishmael Reed, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Patrick O'Brian, and Umberto Eco and to an eclectic mix of iconic religious and philosophical sources, credible comparisons with works by Rabelais, Cervantes, Laurence Sterne, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Mann, William Burroughs, Ralph Ellison, Patrick White, and Toni Morrison have been made. Henry Adams may refer to Henry Adams (mechanical engineer (1858-1929 American engineer Henry Adams (pastor (1802-1872 American Giorgio de Chirico ( July 10, 1888 &ndash November 20, 1978) was an influential pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist William March (born William Edward Campbell September 18 1893 – May 15 1954 was an American World War I veteran short-story writer and novelist cited Rainer Maria Rilke (also Rainer Maria von Rilke (4 December 1875 &ndash 29 December 1926 is considered one of the German language 's greatest 20th century Poets Ishmael Scott Reed ( February 22, 1938) is an American Poet, essayist and novelist Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25 1803 &ndash April 27 1882 was an American essayist philosopher poet and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early 19th century Patrick O'Brian, CBE ( 12 December 1914 &ndash 2 January 2000; born as Richard Patrick Russ) was an English Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932 is an Italian Medievalist, semiotician, Philosopher, literary critic and Novelist, best Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 &ndash April 22, 1616) was a Spanish Novelist Laurence Sterne ( November 24, 1713 &ndash March 18, 1768) was an Irish -born English Novelist and an Anglican Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4 1804 – May 19 1864 was an American novelist and Short story writer Herman Melville (August 1 1819 &ndash September 28 1891 was an American novelist Short story writer Essayist and poet Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924 was a Polish-born English novelist Paul Thomas Mann ( June William Seward Burroughs II ( – ˈbʌroʊz was an American Novelist, Essayist, Social critic, painter and Spoken word Ralph Waldo Ellison ( March 1, 1914 &ndash April 16, 1994) was a Scholar and Writer. Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 — 30 September 1990 was an Australian author who was widely regarded as a major English-language novelist of the 20th century Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18 1931 is a Nobel Prize -winning American author editor and professor Some commentators have detected similarities with those writers in the Modernist tradition who wrote extremely long novels dealing with large metaphysical or political issues. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions Examples of such works might include Ulysses by James Joyce, A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, The Castle by Franz Kafka, The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, and U.S.A. by John Dos Passos. Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920 James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the A Passage to India (1924 is a novel by E M Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH (1 January 1879–7 June 1970 was an English novelist Short story writer Essayist, and Librettist The Castle is a philosophical novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist known only as K The Apes of God is a 1930 Novel by the British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis. Percy Wyndham Lewis ( November 18, 1882 &ndash March 7, 1957) was an English painter and Author (he dropped The Man without Qualities ( German original title Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften) is a novel in three books by the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Robert Musil born Robert Edler von Musil ( November 6, 1880, Klagenfurt, Austria &ndash The USA Trilogy is the major work of American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930 1919, also known as Nineteen John Roderigo Dos Passos ( January 14, 1896 &ndash September 28, 1970) was an American Novelist and artist In his 'Introduction' to Slow Learner, Pynchon explicitly acknowledges his debt to Beat Generation writers, and expresses his admiration for Jack Kerouac's On the Road in particular; he also reveals his familiarity with literary works by T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Saul Bellow, Herbert Gold, Philip Roth and Norman Mailer, and non-fiction works by Helen Waddell, Norbert Wiener and Isaac Asimov. Jack Kerouac ( March 12 1922 &ndash October 21 1969) was an American Novelist, Writer, Poet, and On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951 and published by Viking Press in 1957. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21 1899 — July 2 1961 was an American novelist short-story writer, and Journalist. Henry Valentine Miller (December 26 1891 &ndash June 7 1980 was an American writer and painter. Saul Bellow, born Solomon Bellows ( June 10, 1915 – April 5, 2005) was an acclaimed Canadian -born American Herbert Gold (born March 9, 1924) is an American novelist. Early life Gold was born in Cleveland, Ohio, Philip Milton Roth (born March 19, 1933, Newark New Jersey) is an American novelist Norman Kingsley Mailer ( January 31, 1923 &ndash November 10, 2007) was an American Novelist, Journalist, Helen Jane Waddell ( May 31 1889 &ndash March 1965 was an Irish poet translator and playwright Norbert Wiener ( November 26, 1894, Columbia Missouri – March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Sweden) was an American Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian Other contemporary American authors whose fiction is often categorized alongside Pynchon's include John Hawkes, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Donald Barthelme, John Barth, William Gaddis, Don DeLillo, and Joseph McElroy. John Hawkes, born John Clendennin Talbot Burne Hawkes Jr ( August 17 1925 – May 15, 1998) was a postmodern Kurt Vonnegut Jr (November 11 1922 – April 11 2007 (ˈvɒnəgət was a prolific and genre-bending American Novelist known for works blending Satire, Black Joseph Heller (May 1 1923 – December 12 1999 was an American Satirical novelist Short story writer and playwright Donald Barthelme ( April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American author of short fiction and Novels He also John Simmons Barth (born May 27 1930 is an American novelist and short-story writer known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work William Gaddis ( December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist Don DeLillo (born November 20 1936 is an American author best known for his Novels which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries Joseph McElroy (born 1930 in Brooklyn New York) is an American novelist

The wildly eccentric characters, frenzied action, frequent digressions, and imposing lengths of Pynchon's novels have led critic James Wood to classify Pynchon's work as hysterical realism. James Wood (born 1965 in Durham) is an English literary critic and Novelist. Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism or Maximalism, is a Literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately Other writers whose work has been labeled as hysterical realism include Salman Rushdie, Steve Erickson, Neal Stephenson, and Zadie Smith. Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Kt (born 19 June 1947 is an Indian - British novelist and essayist Stephen Michael Erickson (born April 20 1950) is an American novelist essayist and critic Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known primarily for his Science fiction works in the Postcyberpunk genre Zadie Smith (born 25 October 1975 is an English Novelist. To date she has written three novels Younger contemporary writers who have been touted as heirs apparent to Pynchon include David Foster Wallace, William Vollmann, Richard Powers, Steve Erickson, David Mitchell, Neal Stephenson, Dave Eggers, and Tommaso Pincio whose pseudonym is an Italian rendering of Pynchon's name. David Foster Wallace (February 21 1962&ndashSeptember 12 2008 was an American author of novels, Essays and short-stories William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959 in Los Angeles California) is an American Novelist Journalist, Short Richard Powers (born June 18, 1957) is an American Novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology Stephen Michael Erickson (born April 20 1950) is an American novelist essayist and critic David Mitchell (born January 12, 1969) is an English Novelist. Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known primarily for his Science fiction works in the Postcyberpunk genre Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American Writer, editor, and publisher. Tommaso Pincio is the pseudonym of Marco Colapietro, an Italian author of four novels including Love-shaped story, the only one translated in English so

Pynchon's work has been cited as an influence and inspiration by many writers and artists, including T. Coraghessan Boyle, Alan Cabal, Don DeLillo, Ian Rankin, William Gibson, Elfriede Jelinek, Rick Moody, Alan Moore, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Richard Powers, Salman Rushdie, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Jan Wildt, Laurie Anderson, Zak Smith, David Cronenberg, and Adam Rapp. T Coraghessan Boyle (also known as TC Boyle, born Thomas John Boyle on December 2, 1948) is a U Don DeLillo (born November 20 1936 is an American author best known for his Novels which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries Ian Rankin OBE, DL, (born 28 April 1960 in Cardenden, Fife) is a Scottish Crime writer. William Ford Gibson (born March 17 1948 is an American - Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the Cyberpunk subgenre Elfriede Jelinek (ˀɛlˈfʀiːdɛ ˈjɛlinɛk (born 20 October, 1946) is an Austrian feminist Playwright and Novelist Rick Moody (born Hiram Frederick Moody III, October 18 1961) is an American Novelist and Short story writer best known for Alan Moore (born November 18 1953 in Northampton) is an English Writer most famous for his influential work in Comics, including the acclaimed Arturo Pérez-Reverte (November 25 1951 Cartagena Spain) is a Spanish Novelist and Journalist. Richard Powers (born June 18, 1957) is an American Novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Kt (born 19 June 1947 is an Indian - British novelist and essayist Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known primarily for his Science fiction works in the Postcyberpunk genre Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American Science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades Laurie Anderson (born Laura Phillips Anderson, on June 5 1947 in Glen Ellyn Illinois) is an American experimental Performance artist and Zak Smith is an American artist He was born in Syracuse New York in 1976 and grew up in Washington D David Paul Cronenberg OC, FRSC (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian Film director and occasional Actor. Adam Rapp (born in Chicago, Illinois) is a novelist playwright screenwriter and filmmaker Thanks to his influence on Gibson and Stephenson in particular, Pynchon became one of the progenitors of cyberpunk fiction. Cyberpunk is a Science fiction genre noted for its focus on " High tech and low life. Though the term "cyberpunk" did not become prevalent until the early 1980s, many readers retroactively include Gravity's Rainbow in the genre, along with other works — e. g. , Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren and many works of Philip K. Dick — which seem, after the fact, to anticipate cyberpunk styles and themes. Samuel Ray Delany Jr (born April 1, 1942, New York City) is an award-winning American Science fiction Dhalgren is a Science fiction Novel by Samuel R Delany. The story begins with this cryptic passage to wound the Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. The encyclopedic nature of Pynchon's novels also led to some attempts to link his work with the short-lived hypertext fiction movement of the 1990s (Page 2002; Krämer 2005). An encyclopedia (or '''encyclopædia''') is a comprehensive written Compendium that contains Information on either all branches of Knowledge Hypertext fiction is a genre of Electronic literature, characterized by the use of Hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in "literature"

Media scrutiny

Relatively little is known about Thomas Pynchon's private life; he has carefully avoided contact with journalists for more than forty years. Only a few photos of him are known to exist, nearly all from his high school and college days, and his whereabouts have often remained undisclosed.

A review of V. in the New York Times Book Review described Pynchon as "a recluse" living in Mexico, thereby introducing the media label which has pursued Pynchon throughout his career (Plimpton 1963: 5). The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press" Nonetheless, Pynchon's absence from the public spotlight is one of the notable features of his life, and it has generated many rumors and apocryphal anecdotes.

1970s and 1980s

After the publication and success of Gravity's Rainbow, interest mounted in finding out more about the identity of the author. At the 1974 National Book Award ceremony, the president of Viking Press, Tom Guinzberg, arranged for double-talking comedian "Professor" Irwin Corey to accept the prize on Pynchon's behalf (Royster 2005). The National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Viking Press is an American Publishing company currently owned by Penguin Books. 'Professor' Irwin Corey (born July 29, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American Comic, Film Actor Many of the assembled guests had no idea who Corey was, and, having never seen the author, they assumed that it was Pynchon himself on the stage delivering Corey's trademark torrent of rambling, pseudo-scholarly verbiage (Corey 1974). Towards the end of Corey's address a streaker ran through the hall, adding further to the confusion.

An article published in the Soho Weekly News claimed that Pynchon was in fact J. D. Salinger (Batchelor 1976). Jerome David "J D" Salinger (born January 1 1919 (ˈsælɨndʒɚ is an American author best known for his 1951 Novel The Catcher in the Rye Pynchon's written response to this theory (reported in Tanner 1982) was simple: "Not bad. Keep trying. "

Thereafter, the first piece to provide substantial information about Pynchon's personal life was a biographical account written by a former Cornell University friend, Jules Siegel, and published in Playboy magazine. Jules Siegel (born October 21, 1935, New York City) is a Writer and Graphic designer whose work has appeared over the years in Playboy is an American Men's magazine, founded in Chicago Illinois, by Hugh Hefner and his associates which has grown into Playboy In his article, Siegel reveals that Pynchon had a complex about his teeth and underwent extensive and painful reconstructive surgery, was nicknamed "Tom" at Cornell and attended Mass diligently, acted as best man at Siegel's wedding, and that he later also had an affair with Siegel's wife. For alternate usage see Complexity. In Psychology a complex is an important group of unconscious associations connected The Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Participants in wedding ceremonies, also known as the wedding party, include the bride and groom (or bridegroom) the maid of honor Siegel recalls Pynchon saying he did attend some of Vladimir Nabokov's lectures at Cornell but that he could hardly make out what Nabokov was saying because of his thick Russian accent. This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. Siegel also records Pynchon's comment that "[e]very weirdo in the world is on my wavelength", an observation borne out by the crankiness and zealotry which has attached itself to his name and work in subsequent years, particularly across the Internet (Siegel 1977). "Crank" is a Pejorative term for a person who either holds some belief which the vast majority of his contemporaries would consider false is eccentric (especially The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks

In the late 1980s, author Robert Clark Young prevailed upon his father, an employee of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, to look up Pynchon's driving record, using Pynchon's full name and known birth date. Robert Clark Young (born 1960) is an American author of novels, essays, and short stories. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. The results showed that Pynchon was living at the time in Aptos, California, and was driving a 1974 Datsun (Young 1992). Aptos is a Census-designated place (CDP in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. Datsun was an automobile Marque. There never was an actual "Datsun" company as the brand name was used in production only by DAT Motors and its successor The improperly-obtained cancelled license subsequently found its way into the hands of at least two academics publishing scholarly work on Pynchon.

1990s

Pynchon's avoidance of celebrity and public appearances caused journalists to continue to speculate about his identity and activities, and reinforced his reputation within the media as "reclusive". A celebrity is a widely-recognized or famous person who commands a high degree of public and media attention More astute readers and critics recognized that there were and are perhaps aesthetic (and ideological) motivations behind his choice to remain aloof from public life. For example, the protagonist in Janette Turner Hospital's short story, "For Mr. Janette Turner Hospital (née Turner) (born 12 November 1942) is an Australian -born Novelist and Short story Writer Voss or Occupant" (publ. 1991), explains to her daughter that she is writing

a study of authors who become reclusive. Patrick White, Emily Dickinson, J. D. Salinger, Thomas Pynchon. Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 — 30 September 1990 was an Australian author who was widely regarded as a major English-language novelist of the 20th century Jerome David "J D" Salinger (born January 1 1919 (ˈsælɨndʒɚ is an American author best known for his 1951 Novel The Catcher in the Rye The way they create solitary characters and personae and then disappear into their fictions. A persona, in the word's everyday usage is a social Role or a character played by an Actor. (Hospital 1995: 361-2)

More recently, book critic Arthur Salm has written that

the man simply chooses not to be a public figure, an attitude that resonates on a frequency so out of phase with that of the prevailing culture that if Pynchon and Paris Hilton were ever to meet — the circumstances, I admit, are beyond imagining — the resulting matter/antimatter explosion would vaporize everything from here to Tau Ceti IV. In Particle physics and Quantum chemistry, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the Antiparticle to Matter, where antimatter is composed Tau Ceti (τ Cet / τ Ceti ˌtaʊ ˈsiːtaɪ is a Star in the Constellation Cetus that is similar to the Sun in Mass and (Salm 2004)

Belying this reputation somewhat, Pynchon has published a number of articles and reviews in the mainstream American media, including words of support for Salman Rushdie and his then-wife, Marianne Wiggins, after the fatwa was pronounced against Rushdie by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (Pynchon 1989). Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Kt (born 19 June 1947 is an Indian - British novelist and essayist Marianne Wiggins (1947– is the author of nine novels and one collection of short stories A fatwā (فتوى plural fatāwā فتاوى in the Islamic faith is a religious opinion on Islamic law issued by an Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Kt (born 19 June 1947 is an Indian - British novelist and essayist For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ( Persian:, pronounced muːsæviː-je xomejniː}}( September 24, 1902 – June 3 1989 In the following year, Rushdie's enthusiastic review of Pynchon's Vineland prompted Pynchon to send him another message hinting that if Rushdie were ever in New York, the two should arrange a meeting. The City of New York Eventually, the two did meet, and Rushdie found himself surprised by how much Pynchon resembled the mental image Rushdie had formed beforehand (Hitchens 1997).

In the early 1990s, Pynchon married his literary agent, Melanie Jackson — a great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt — and fathered a son, Jackson, in 1991. The disclosure of Pynchon's location in New York, after many years in which he was believed to be dividing his time between Mexico and northern California, led some journalists and photographers to try to track him down. The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Shortly before the publication of Mason & Dixon in 1997, a CNN camera crew filmed him in Manhattan. Cable News Network, usually referred to by its Initialism CNN, is a major English language Television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner Manhattan Island, in New York Harbor, is much the largest part of the Borough of Manhattan, one of the Five Boroughs which form the City of New York Angered by this invasion of his privacy, he rang CNN asking that he not be identified in the footage of the street scenes near his home. When asked about his reclusive nature, he remarked, "My belief is that 'recluse' is a code word generated by journalists . . . meaning, 'doesn't like to talk to reporters'. " CNN also quoted him as saying, "Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed. " (CNN 1997) The next year, a reporter for the Sunday Times managed to snap a photo of him as he was walking with his son (Bone 1998). The Sunday Times is a popular South African Sunday newspaper It has an audited circulation of 504 000 and a weekly readership of 32 million making it the largest

After several references to Pynchon's work and reputation were made on NBC's The John Larroquette Show, Pynchon (through his agent) reportedly contacted the show's producers to offer suggestions and corrections. The National Broadcasting Company ( NBC) is an American Television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's The John Larroquette Show is a Situation comedy that ran on the NBC network from 1993 - 1996. When a local Pynchon sighting became a major plot point in a 1994 episode of the show, Pynchon was sent the script for his approval; as well as providing the title of a fictitious work to be used in one episode ("Pandemonium of the Sun"), the novelist apparently vetoed a final scene that called for an extra playing him to be filmed from behind, walking away from shot (CNN 1997; Glenn 2003). Also during the 1990s, Pynchon apparently befriended members of the band Lotion and attended a number of their shows, culminating in the liner notes he contributed for the band's 1995 album Nobody's Cool. Lotion was a Manhattan quartet started in 1991 by brothers Bill and Jim Ferguson, Tony Zajkowski, and Rob Youngberg. The novelist then conducted an interview with the band ("Lunch With Lotion") for Esquire in June 1996 in the lead-up to the publication of Mason & Dixon. More recently, Pynchon provided faxed answers to questions submitted by author David Hajdu and permitted excerpts from his personal correspondence to be quoted in Hajdu's 2001 book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña (Warner 2001). Fax (short for facsimile, from Latin fac simile, "make similar" i

Pynchon's attempt to maintain his personal privacy and have his work speak for itself has resulted in a number of outlandish rumors and hoaxes over the years. Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively Indeed, claims that Pynchon was the Unabomber or a sympathizer with the Waco Branch Davidians after the 1993 siege were upstaged in the mid-1990s by the invention of an elaborate rumor insinuating that Pynchon and one "Wanda Tinasky" were the same person. The Branch Davidians are a Sect that originated from a schism in 1955 from the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, themselves former members of the Wanda Tinasky, ostensibly a Bag lady living under a bridge in the Mendocino County area of Northern California, was the Pseudonymous author of A spate of letters authored under that name had appeared in the late 1980s in the Anderson Valley Advertiser in Anderson Valley, California. The Anderson Valley Advertiser is a small but well-known weekly Newspaper published in Anderson Valley, California. Anderson Valley is a sparsely populated region in western Mendocino County in Northern California. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. The style and content of those letters were said to resemble Pynchon's, and Pynchon's Vineland, published in 1990, also takes place in northern California, so it was suggested that Pynchon may have been in the area at that time, conducting research. A collection of the Tinasky letters was eventually published as a paperback book in 1996; however, Pynchon himself denied having written the letters, and no direct attribution of the letters to Pynchon was ever made. "Literary detective" Donald Foster subsequently showed that the Letters were in fact written by an obscure Beat writer called Tom Hawkins, who had murdered his wife and then committed suicide in 1988. Foster's evidence was conclusive, including finding the typewriter on which the "Tinasky" letters had been written (Foster 2000).

In 1998, over 120 letters that Pynchon had written to his longtime agent, Candida Donadio, were donated by the family of private collector, Carter Burden, to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City. The letters ranged from 1963 to 1982, thus covering some of the author's most creative and prolific years. Although the Morgan Library originally intended to allow scholars to view the letters, at Pynchon’s request the Burden family and Morgan Library agreed to seal these letters until after Pynchon's death (see Gussow 1998).

2000s

After 9/11, a supposed "interview" with Pynchon appeared in an issue of Playboy Japan. Published under the heading "Most News is Propaganda. Bin Laden May Not Exist", it purported to be a talk with Pynchon on the events of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden. Its authenticity is highly dubious and it has never been republished in the American media.

Pynchon depicted in The Simpsons episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife". His Simpsons appearances are the only times that Pynchon's voice has been broadcast in the media.

Responding ironically to the image which has been manufactured in the media over the years, during 2004, Pynchon made two cameo appearances on the animated television series The Simpsons. The first occurs in the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", in which Marge Simpson becomes a novelist. " Diatribe of a Mad Housewife " is the tenth episode of The Simpsons ' fifteenth season, which originally aired January 25 Marjorie "Marge" Simpson (née Bouvier) is a Fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons He plays himself, with a paper bag over his head, and provides a blurb for the back cover of Marge's book, speaking in a broad Long Island accent: "Here's your quote: Thomas Pynchon loved this book, almost as much as he loves cameras!" He then starts yelling at passing cars: "Hey, over here, have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we'll throw in a free autograph! But, wait! There's more!" The second appearance occurs in "All's Fair in Oven War," which was the sixteenth-season premiere. All's Fair in Oven War is the second episode of The Simpsons ' sixteenth season. In this appearance, Pynchon's dialogue consists entirely of puns on his novel titles ("These wings are 'V'-licious! I'll put this recipe in 'The Gravity's Rainbow Cookbook', right next to 'The Frying of Latke 49'. A pun (or paronomasia) is a Phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar-sounding Words for humorous or Rhetorical Potato pancakes, also known as latkes or latkas ( Yiddish: לאַטקעס Hebrew: לביבה levivah, plural לביבות "). The cartoon representation of Pynchon reappears in a third, non-speaking cameo, as a guest at the fictional WordLoaf convention depicted in the 18th season (2006) episode, "Moe'N'a Lisa. " Moe'n'a Lisa " Plot After various phrases of "Don't Forget"'s are found all over the house ( Homer 's stomach Santa's Little Helper " The episode first aired on November 19, 2006, the Sunday before Pynchon's sixth novel, Against the Day, was released, perhaps as part of an increasingly unusual publicity campaign. Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately

In July of 2006, Amazon.com created a page showing an upcoming 992-page, untitled, Thomas Pynchon novel. Amazoncom Inc ( is an American electronic commerce ( E-commerce) company in Seattle Washington. A description of the soon-to-be published novel appeared on Amazon purporting to be written by Pynchon himself. The description was taken down, prompting speculation over its authenticity, but the blurb was soon back up along with the title of Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day.

Shortly before Against the Day was published, Pynchon's prose appeared in the program for "The Daily Show: Ten Fu@#ing Years (The Concert)", a retrospective on Jon Stewart's comedy-news broadcast The Daily Show.

On the 6 December 2006, Pynchon joined a campaign by many other major authors to clear Ian McEwan of plagiarism charges by sending a typed letter to his British publisher, which was published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper (Pynchon 2006b). Ian McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL, (born June 21, 1948) is a Booker Prize -winning English Novelist For "The Daily Telegraph" in Australia see The Daily Telegraph (Australia.

The villain Newman Xeno of Matt Fraction's comic book series Casanova claims, at one point, to be Thomas Pynchon.

Works

• V. (March, 1963), winner of William Faulkner Foundation Award
• The Crying of Lot 49 (27 April, 1966), winner of Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award
• Gravity's Rainbow (28 February, 1973), 1974 National Book Award for fiction, judges' unanimous selection for Pulitzer Prize overruled by advisory board, awarded William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1975 (award declined)
• Slow Learner (April, 1984), collection of early short stories
• Vineland (February, 1990)
• Mason & Dixon (30 April, 1997)
• Against the Day (21 November, 2006)

As well as fictional works, Pynchon has written essays, introductions, and reviews addressing subjects as diverse as missile security, the Watts Riots, Luddism and the work of Donald Barthelme. V is the debut Novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the author of the best American work of fiction that year The Crying of Lot 49 ( 1966) is a Novel by the Author Thomas Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973. The National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. The Pulitzer Prize, ˈpʊlɨtsɚ PULL-it-sər is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in Newspaper journalism, Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of six early Novellas by the American Novelist Thomas Pynchon. Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a Postmodern tale of life in the 1980s United States. Mason & Dixon, an epic postmodernist novel by Thomas Pynchon first published in 1997 centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason Against the Day is a Novel by Thomas Pynchon. The Narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately An essay is usually a short piece of writing It is often written from an author's personal point of view. See also Critic. A review is an evaluation of a publication such as a movie, Video game, Musical composition The term Watts Riots refers to a large-scale Race riot which lasted six days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles California, in August The Luddites were a Social movement of British Textile artisans in the early Nineteenth century who protested&mdashoften by destroying mechanized Donald Barthelme ( April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American author of short fiction and Novels He also Some of his non-fiction pieces have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and The New York Review of Books, and he has contributed blurbs for books and records. The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly Magazine on Literature, Culture, and current A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work usually referring to the words on the back of the Book but also commonly seen on DVD His 1984 Introduction to the Slow Learner collection of early stories is significant for its autobiographical candour. Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of six early Novellas by the American Novelist Thomas Pynchon. An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write" He has written introductions to at least three books, including the 1992 collection of Donald Barthelme's stories, The Teachings of Don B. Donald Barthelme ( April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American author of short fiction and Novels He also and, more recently, the Penguin Centenary Edition of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was published in 2003, and the Penguin Classics edition of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me written by Pynchon's close friend, Richard Fariña, and first published in 1966. Penguin Books is a British Publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950 who used the Pseudonym George Orwell, was an English writer Nineteen Eighty-Four (also titled 1984) by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) is a 1949 English Novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me is a Novel by Richard Fariña. Richard George Fariña ( March 8, 1937 &ndash April 30, 1966) was an American Writer and Folksinger.

References

External links

The following links were last verified on May 28, 2007.

• "Thomas Pynchon and the myth of invisibility": a review of Against the Day in the TLS, December 1st, 2006.
• The Thomas Pynchon Wiki
• Official UK publisher's site
• The Ancestry of Novelist Thomas Pynchon
• HyperArts Pynchon Pages
• Discussion group for Against the Day
• Against the Day Blog
• Literary Encyclopedia biography
• Prüfstand 7 Information about the movie featuring scenes from Gravity's Rainbow
• (German) Pynchon Index
• The Pynchon-L mailing list
• Daily Telegraph article with Pynchon letter
• Pynchon Notes, a journal operated by Miami University in Oxford, Ohio
• pynchonoid.blogspot.com
• San Narciso Pynchon Page, hosted in Claremont, California, "a town that looks a lot, in fact, like San Narciso"
• Spermatikos Logos
• (Polish) Tęcza Grawitacji ('Gravity's Rainbow'), a Polish Pynchon site
• Pynchonesque, art inspired by Thomas Pynchon
• Thomas Pynchon's Family Tree, Thomas Pynchon's Family Tree
• Thomas Pynchon. a journey in the mind of p. Film by Fosco and Donatello Dubini