Book contents
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Times and Places
- Chapter 1 Biography
- Chapter 2 Letters and Juvenilia
- Chapter 3 Nonfiction
- Chapter 4 East Coast
- Chapter 5 West Coast
- Chapter 6 Europe and Asia
- Chapter 7 Africa and Latin America
- Chapter 8 Geographies and Mapping
- Chapter 9 The Eighteenth Century
- Chapter 10 The Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 11 The Twentieth Century
- Chapter 12 The Twenty-First Century
- Chapter 13 History and Metahistory
- Part II Culture, Politics, and Society
- Part III Approaches and Readings
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 10 - The Nineteenth Century
from Part I - Times and Places
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2019
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Times and Places
- Chapter 1 Biography
- Chapter 2 Letters and Juvenilia
- Chapter 3 Nonfiction
- Chapter 4 East Coast
- Chapter 5 West Coast
- Chapter 6 Europe and Asia
- Chapter 7 Africa and Latin America
- Chapter 8 Geographies and Mapping
- Chapter 9 The Eighteenth Century
- Chapter 10 The Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 11 The Twentieth Century
- Chapter 12 The Twenty-First Century
- Chapter 13 History and Metahistory
- Part II Culture, Politics, and Society
- Part III Approaches and Readings
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
If you read through all of Thomas Pynchon’s eight novels, David Kipen has argued, they “fuse into one epic Pynchoverse, a crowded, panoramic canvas of the republic, from its earliest colonial stirrings clear down to the mounting, vertiginous terror of right now.” Pynchon’s “Yoknapatawpha of American and Western civilization” seems, however, to have one big, crucial historical hole, namely, the nineteenth century, the century that saw a young, provincial republic become a powerful nation ready for its imperialist overseas expansion. This is the reason why some Pynchon aficionados (myself included) cherish the suspicion or hope that the reclusive author may still have in store the last of his historical fictions, a novel set in the nineteenth century that would constitute the final piece of his huge puzzle. The rumor was spread by Salman Rushdie, who in his 1990 review of Vineland reported that a London magazine had announced “the publication of a 900-page Pynchon megabook about the American Civil War,” before he immediately dismissed it – “ho ho ho” – as an April fool’s prank. Yet somehow the idea stuck.
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- Thomas Pynchon in Context , pp. 82 - 88Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019