Pynchon and the Political

Description

Thomas Pynchon's writing has been widely regarded as an exemplary form of postmodern fiction. It is characterized as genre-defying and enigmatic, as a series of complex and esoteric language games. This study attempts to demonstrate, however, that an oblique yet compelling sense of the "political" Pynchon disappers all too easily under the mantle of postmodernity. Innovative and unsettling discussions of freedom, war, labor, poverty, community, democracy, and totalitarianism are passed over in favor of constrictive scientific metaphors and theoretical play. Against this current, this study analyzes Pynchon's fiction in terms of its radical dimension, showing how it points to new directions in the relationship between the political and the aesthetic. Book Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction: Text-Politics-Criticism-Methodology Chapter One Retro-Vertigo: Escaping the Enlightenment in Mason & Dixon Chapter Two Blank Checks: Economy and Invisibility in Mason & Dixon Chapter Three Theatre of Operations: Surgery, War and Questing in V. and Gravity’s Rainbow Chapter Four Memento-Mori: War-Life and War-Experience in Gravity’s Rainbow and V. Chapter Five (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding? Resistance vs. Withdrawal in The Crying of Lot 49 Chapter Six Sir Yes Sir! Doing it to Yourself and Doing it for Yourself in Vineland Conclusion: Pynchon-Politics-Everybody Notes Bibliography Index