Description
Book SynopsisA comprehensive study of the most influential figure in postwar American literature, Thomas Pynchon -- .
Trade ReviewMalpas and Taylor are indeed stimulating. Their study provides a clear, lucid discussion of several key themes in Pynchon’s novels, chief amongst which are paranoia, the emancipatory power of fantasy and alternative modes of perception, and the ‘subjunctive potentiality’ of spaces of resistance. Malpas and Taylor’s analysis is always illuminating, and their analysis of space in particular ensures that their book is a significant contribution to the diffuse field of Pynchon scholarship., George Twigg, Orbit, 2 March 2015 -- .
Table of ContentsIntroduction: ‘the fork in the road’
1. Refuge and refuse in Slow Learner
2. Convoluted reading: identity, interpretation and reference in The Crying of Lot 49
3. Disappearing points: V.
4. ‘A progressive knotting into’: power, presentation and history in Gravity’s Rainbow
5. Cultural nostalgia and political possibility in Vineland
6. Mason & Dixon and the transnational vortices of historical fiction
7. ‘I believe in incursion from elsewhere’: political and aesthetic disruption in Against the Day
Conclusion: Inherent Vice as Pynchon Lite?
Works Cited
Index
