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Chapter 3 - Against the Day

From World Fair to World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2023

Tore Rye Andersen
Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
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Summary

The third chapter of the book analyzes Pynchon’s portrayal of the complex geopolitical situation around 1900. Against the Day is the longest and most relentlessly globetrotting novel in the global trilogy, and the chapter traces the different literary mapping strategies that Pynchon employs to depict the progress of modernity across the planet and his characters’ restless traverses through this and other worlds. The chapter also analyzes Pynchon’s deft use of various genres from the depicted period, just as it discusses the novel’s curious non-depiction of World War I and Pynchon’s rendering of the defeatist attitude which made the war possible. Finally, through an analysis of the related themes of bilocation and refraction the chapter shows which modes of resistance Pynchon’s longest novel proposes to place against the day, and it undertakes a close reading of the novel’s highly ambiguous epilogue, which leads directly into Gravity’s Rainbow.

Type
Chapter
Information
Planetary Pynchon
History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene
, pp. 59 - 93
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Against the Day
  • Tore Rye Andersen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Planetary Pynchon
  • Online publication: 24 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377607.004
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  • Against the Day
  • Tore Rye Andersen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Planetary Pynchon
  • Online publication: 24 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377607.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Against the Day
  • Tore Rye Andersen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Planetary Pynchon
  • Online publication: 24 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377607.004
Available formats
×