Questions tagged [thomas-pynchon]
Questions about the works of the American novelist Thomas Pynchon (born 1937) and his life as a writer.
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Why is Gravity’s Rainbow considered postmodern, yet Finnegans Wake is not?
Why is Gravity’s Rainbow considered postmodern, yet Finnegans Wake is not?
Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) has been received as a canonical instance of postmodernism.
See
Pynchon, ...
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What was Slothrop doing in London during the first Blitz?
Early in Gravity's Rainbow, in the first section where we're privy to Slothrop's stream-of-consciousness, he muses:
A lot of stuff prior to 1944 is getting blurry now. He can remember
the first Blitz ...
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Why is "The Crying of Lot 49" considered metafiction?
Why is Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 considered metafiction?
I've read some articles about historiographic metafiction in The Crying of Lot 49, but still can't understand it.
Rabeb Ben Hania: ...
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Meaning of "But were Oedipa some single melted crystal of urban horse” from “The Crying of Lot 49”
What does “But were Oedipa some single melted crystal of urban horse” mean?
Here is the full quote:
What the road really was, she fancied, was this hypodermic needle, inserted somewhere ahead into ...
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Is there a consistent set of messages that run throughout the works of Thomas Pynchon?
In popular culture, Pynchon is best known (quite often by those who haven't read his work) as a zany, mischievous creator of large and very difficult to read books. His use of language and portrayal ...
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What’s up with Slothrop the paedophile?
Sexual child abuse features centrally in Gravity’s Rainbow. While the sexual abuse of children is certainly a valid topic for a novel, I have become more and more disturbed by Pynchon's handling of ...
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Any differences in structure between editions of Pynchon's V?
In the Picador edition of Pynchon's V, there is a V of Vs on (pre) page 7, and each chapter title is structured as a V.
Does the first edition also contain a V of Vs, and similarly structured chapter ...
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What is the symbolism of the yo-yo in V.?
The yo-yo is mentioned often in Thomas Pynchon's V., including in a few chapter names. What does it symbolize?
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What does the letter V in Thomas Pynchon's book symbolize?
Obviously, V. is a character in the book, known only by her initial. That initial is also the title of the book, which actually includes the period.
But I assume this title/name symbolizes something ...
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What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in? [closed]
Thomas Pynchon is a writer famous for having dense and hard to read books, but is acclaimed for those books. He wrote V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, and others.
What order should I ...
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