A. I’m a few chapters–three, precisely—from finishing Mason & Dixon. “Finishing” is not the right verb here, though—Pynchon’s novel is so rich, funny, strange, and energetic that I want to return to it immediately. B. But I need to backtrack a bit, riff on one of my favorite episodes—Chapter 50. C. (First riff and second riff… Continue reading Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (Third Riff: The Rabbi of Prague)
A. Okay. So I finished the first section of Mason & Dixon a few days ago. I’m now at the part where our titular heroes are smoking weed and eating snacks with George Washington. I can’t possibly handle all the material I’ve read so far—even in a riff (here’s the first riff for anyone inclined)—so instead I’ll… Continue reading Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (Second Riff: The Pygmies’ Discovery of Great Britain)
A. Mason & Dixon: I bought my copy at Shaman Bookstore in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in the fall of 2002. I had just read and absorbed V., but could not get into Mason & Dixon. Chalk up this initial failure to the novel’s daunting scope, the formal characteristics of its faux-18th c. style, too much Thai whiskey, etc. I… Continue reading Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (First Riff)
One day, the Meridian having been closely enough establish’d, and with an hour or two of free time available to them, one heads north, one south, and ’tis Dixon’s luck to discover The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet… Continue reading Live long and prosper (Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon)
Today, 8 May 2022, is Thomas Ruggles Pynchon’s 85th birthday. Some of us nerds celebrate the work of one of the world’s greatest living authors with something called Pynchon in Public Day. In the past I’ve rounded up links to Pynchon stuff on Biblioklept and elsewhere. To celebrate, here are short riffs on Pynchon’s eight… Continue reading A few sentences on every Thomas Pynchon novel to date
Today, 8 May 2021, is Thomas Ruggles Pynchon’s 84th birthday. Some of us nerds celebrate the work of one of the world’s greatest living authors with something called Pynchon in Public Day. In the past I’ve rounded up links to Pynchon stuff on Biblioklept and elsewhere. Last year, that weird pandemic year, I finally finished… Continue reading A few sentences on every Thomas Pynchon novel to date
I finished reading Thomas Pynchon’s 2013 novel Bleeding Edge a few minutes before I started typing up this blog. I’d jotted down a few notes as I was reading the book over the past two weeks, thinking about writing a review or an essay about the novel, but lately I seem to sit on such… Continue reading Blog about Thomas Pynchon’s novel Bleeding Edge
Thomas Pynchon beat out J.G. Ballard, earning 61% of 337 votes of my totally-scientific and not-at-all arbitrary twitter poll to become the Champion of the 2020 Tournament of Zeitgeisty Writers. Mr. Pynchon’s trophy is at Biblioklept World Headquarters here in Florida. After this whole quarantine business is over I’m sure he’ll arrange to pick it… Continue reading Thomas Pynchon beats J.G. Ballard to win the 2020 Tournament of Zeitgeisty Writers
I was looking for something else when I found a fun article from six years ago in Bon Appétit. The article, by Nicole Villeneuve, is called “All the Food in Thomas Pynchon’s Books (and What It Means, Sorta),” and it riffs on most of the food in Pynchon’s oeuvre. Here’s the section on “The Inedible,” which… Continue reading (Not Quite) All the Food in Thomas Pynchon’s Books
It’s been pretty busy around Biblioklept World Headquarters this week. It’s the first week of my kids’ summer vacation, and they both had birthdays this week, as did I. I managed to read but not write that much—so here’s this lazy post. I finally finished Robert Coover’s 1966 debut novel The Origin of the Brunists this morning,… Continue reading Blog about some recent reading
Today is the 82nd birthday of the American author Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, which a lot of jokers on the internet have turned into Pynchon in Public Day. The spirit of Pynchon in Public Day is zany fun, and mostly centers around reading Pynchon’s works in public and spreading the muted post horn symbol from The Crying… Continue reading Pynchon in Public Post, 2019
Today is Pynchon in Public Day, so today’s Three Books blog offers three books that I think may make good entry points for those interested in, but perhaps unnecessarily daunted by, Thomas Pynchon. My intuition is that many readers’ first experiences reading Pynchon may have been like mine: I read The Crying of Lot 49 as a college […]
… Continue reading Three potential starting points for reading Thomas Pynchon
I was looking for something else when I found a fun article from six years ago in Bon Appétit. The article, by Nicole Villeneuve, is called “All the Food in Thomas Pynchon’s Books (and What It Means, Sorta),” and it riffs on most of the food in Pynchon’s oeuvre. Here’s the section on “The Inedible,” which… Continue reading (Not Quite) All the Food in Thomas Pynchon’s Books
Life is too short not to reread. Chosen somewhat randomly but also sincerely, seven books I’d love to read again sometime soon: Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon I read Mason & Dixon a few years back and then started to immediately reread it before getting sidetracked with something else. Unlike Gravity’s Rainbow, I think that M&D coheres on… Continue reading Seven (Long) Books I’ll Read Again
What the hell is Pynchon in Public Day? My (incomplete) annotations of Gravity’s Rainbow An argument for three possible starting points for reading Thomas Pynchon In which I read Playboy for the Thomas Pynchon article List of Possible Descriptors for Against the Day Captain Geoffrey “Pirate” Prentice’s bodacious banana breakfast for a bunch of hung over army officers… Continue reading Pynchon in Public Day, 2018
Today is Pynchon in Public Day, so today’s Three Books blog offers three books that I think may make good entry points for those interested in, but perhaps unnecessarily daunted by, Thomas Pynchon. My intuition is that many readers’ first experiences reading Pynchon may have been like mine: I read The Crying of Lot 49 as a college […]
… Continue reading Three potential starting points for reading Thomas Pynchon
Composed in 1836, Georg Büchner’s novella-fragment Lenz still seems ahead of its time. While Lenz’s themes of madness, art, and ennui can be found throughout literature, Büchner’s strange, wonderful prose and documentary aims bypass the constraints of his era. Let me share some of that prose. Here is the opening paragraph of Lenz: The 20th, […]
… Continue reading The Never-Ending Torture of Unrest | Georg Büchner’s Lenz Reviewed
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