Comments on: Untitled Thomas Pynchon

By: Not Even Wrong » Blog Archive » Media and Other News

Not Even Wrong » Blog Archive » Media and Other News — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 21:17:30 +0000

[...] On the way in here I stopped at a bookstore and took a look at the new Thomas Pynchon novel Against the Day. Over at Cosmic Variance, Mark Trodden and Sean Carroll are Pynchon fans and have postings about this. I was quite fond of Vineland and enjoyed some of Pynchon’s earlier books, but he lost me with Mason and Dixon, and this new one doesn’t look promising. From flipping through it, one important topic seems to be quaternions and their relation to 4d space-time geometry, and a group of characters are called the Quaternioneers. I almost bought the book, thinking that it was my duty as a chronicler of the nexus of math, physics and popular culture to read the thing. But when I picked it up, its sheer heft caused an immediate feeling of discouragement, so I put it back down and will wait for reports from others. [...]

By: Cosmic Variance

Cosmic Variance — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 04:20:40 +0000

The Perfect Literary Storm

Broadly speaking I have two great literary loves. Sure I enjoy plenty of grand historical fiction, and certainly I won’t argue the objective worth of any literary giant with you. But when I’m browsing in a bookstore, or sitting at home in …

By: James Duckworth

James Duckworth — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:43:21 +0000

I’m just glad he is back with a formidable sounding posthorn of a book! December should be fun reading time! Roll on Pynchonalia, I say! James

By: Matt Austern

Matt Austern — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 04:04:03 +0000

Dear me, a mention of Mason and Dixon on a physics blog that doesn’t mention the name of the boatswain? It’s a vile pun, but I’m fond of it anyway.

By: seebee

seebee — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:06:18 +0000

According to the wikipedia article on Pynchon, the new books is entitled Against the Day. The source is of course questionable, but better than nothing, no?

By: enthusiasm » Blog Archive » The New Thomas Pynchon (further)

enthusiasm » Blog Archive » The New Thomas Pynchon (further) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:46:54 +0000

[...] Also via Kottke, I checked out a post called The String Theory Backlash on a blog called Cosmic Variance. I like to keep an eye on debates about string theory because I have a homegrown cosmological hypothesis (with which I will not detain you here) which borrows a concept or two from string theory, and I’m waiting for someone to come along and shoot a hole in it. Anyway, I had this page sitting in a browser tab for several hours before I noticed that the previous post title was Untitled Thomas Pynchon, which speculates along much the same lines I did a few posts back, and points to a Slate article which does more or less likewise. Also, the CV post boasts a handful of comments, which of course is a handful more than mine has so far attracted. There’s more discussion in the Amazon Customer Discussion page for the book-to-be - nine hundred and ninety two pages! Wheee!) and of course there’s much threadage on pynchon-l, which I must admit I haven’t yet waded through. Pynchon-l has been all over the story since the 10th. Looks like they had a round of “get over the book blurb already” about a week ago… [...]

By: NoJoy

NoJoy — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:39:22 +0000

I’ve only made it a quarter of the way through GR, with a concordance. When I started reading Pynchon, someone recommended the following order: The Crying of Lot 49, V, then Gravity’s Rainbow (this recommendation was before Vineland and M&D). I haven’t read Vineland yet, but I would insert M&D after V, with the caveat that if you don’t like V, you should read M&D anyway, as it’s completely amazing.

While I’m giving out unsolicited literary advice… If you like M&D, I also recommend Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle and The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

By: Allyson

Allyson — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 02:21:40 +0000

Did you forget the part about Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead changing people’s lives? Or was that just in my college’s pretentious crap pile?

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 01:12:26 +0000

Ah, good old Py, author of the most pretentious pile of crap since Finnegan’s Wake. Takes me back to my grad student days, when everyone played bridge, pretended to read Proust and to be connoisseurs of fine cigars…..

By: Hmmmm

Hmmmm — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:00:04 +0000

and is the graphic of a well known postal conspiracy?

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:34:38 +0000

It seems precisely too Pynchonesque, which is why I’m guessing that it’s not him. If you read his essays, e.g. the intro to Slow Learner, he doesn’t really sound like that at all when he’s not writing fiction. “The author is up to his usual business” seems especially fake to me.

Of course, it would be just like him to play a joke by writing in the style of someone who was trying to write like him. An object lesson in the self-justifying logic of paranoia.

By: spyder

spyder — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:11:55 +0000

The blurb is almost too Pynchonesque; it seems likely he would do something like this, then ask for it to be removed, so that later he can do it again. But Tesla as a cameo in a work that dances on the early days of the global egalitarian hope inspired by electricity seems pretty damn inticing. And no, of course this book would not be in anyway metaphoric or allegoric with reference to anything happening today in the 21st century, never.