Editing Thomas Pynchon (section)

==Career==
===Early career===
====1950s====
{{Main|V.}}
[[File:V. (1963 1st ed cover).jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Book cover illustration of the letter "V." on an abstract horizon|''[[V.]]'' (1963)]]
After leaving Cornell, Pynchon began to work on his first novel, [[V.|''V''.]] From February 1960 to September 1962, he was employed as a technical writer at [[Boeing]] in [[Seattle]], where he compiled safety articles for the ''Bomarc Service News'', a support newsletter for the [[Bomarc Missile Program|BOMARC surface-to-air missile]] deployed by the [[U.S. Air Force]].<ref name=wisnicki2000>{{cite journal|last1=Wisnicki|first1=Adrian|title=A Trove of New Works by Thomas Pynchon? Bomarc Service News Rediscovered|journal=Pynchon Notes|date=2000|volume=46-49|issue=Spring 2000}}</ref> Pynchon's experiences at Boeing inspired his depictions of the "[[Yoyodyne]]" corporation in ''[[V.]]'' and ''[[The Crying of Lot 49]]'', and both his background in physics and the technical journalism he undertook at Boeing provided much raw material for ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]''. ''V.'' won the [[William Faulkner Foundation Award|William Faulkner Foundation Award For Notable First Novel]] and was a finalist for the National Book Award.<ref name=nba1964>[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1964 "National Book Awards&nbsp;– 1964"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415193400/https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1964/ |date=April 15, 2021 }}. National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 29, 2012.</ref>

[[George Plimpton]] gave the book a positive review in ''[[The New York Times]]'', describing it as a [[picaresque novel]], in which "The author can tell his favorite jokes, throw in a song, indulge in a fantasy, include his own verse, display an intimate knowledge of such disparate subjects as physics, astronomy, art, jazz, how a nose-job is done, the wildlife in the New York sewage system. These indeed are some of the topics which constitute a recent and remarkable example of the genre: a brilliant and turbulent first novel published this month by a young Cornell graduate, Thomas Pynchon." Plimpton called Pynchon "a writer of staggering promise."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=April 23, 1963 |title=The Whole Sick Crew |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-v.html |access-date=April 8, 2023 |archive-date=January 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105195701/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-v.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'''s review of ''V.'' concluded: ''"V.'' sails with majesty through caverns measureless to man. What does it mean? Who, finally, is V.? Few books haunt the waking or the sleeping mind, but this is one. Who, indeed?"<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=March 15, 1963 |title=Books: A Myth of Alligators |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,870237-2,00.html |access-date=}}</ref>''.''

====1960s====
{{Main|The Crying of Lot 49}}
[[File:MutedPosthorn.png|thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Stylized line drawing of a post horn with a mute placed in the bell of the instrument|Pynchon created the "muted post horn" as a symbol for the secret "Trystero" society in ''[[The Crying of Lot 49]].'']]
After resigning from Boeing, Pynchon spent some time in New York and Mexico before moving to California, where he was reportedly based for much of the 1960s and early 1970s, most notably in a small downstairs apartment at 217 33rd St. in [[Manhattan Beach, California| Manhattan Beach]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-04-20-cb-56727-story.html |title=A Tour De Force: From LAX Tower to 'Pulp Fiction' Diner to Stars' Hangouts, Pop Culture Landmarks Dot Landscape Here&nbsp;– Page 2 |last=Johnson |first=Ted |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=April 20, 1995 |access-date=August 21, 2013 |archive-date=December 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131204030404/http://articles.latimes.com/1995-04-20/news/cb-56727_1_south-bay/2 |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name="frost">{{cite web|last1=Frost|first1=Garrison|title=Thomas Pynchon and the South Bay|url=http://www.theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030306201820/http://www.theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 6, 2003|website=The Aesthetic|access-date=September 26, 2014}}</ref> where he lived as he was composing what would become ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

In 1964 he applied to study mathematics as a graduate student at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], but was turned down.<ref name=royster2005>{{cite journal|last1=Royster|first1=Paul|title=Thomas Pynchon: A Brief Chronology|date=June 23, 2005}}</ref>

But in an April 1964 letter to his agent, Candida Donadio, Pynchon wrote that he had four novels in progress, announcing: "If they come out on paper anything like they are inside my head then it will be the literary event of the millennium."<ref name=gussow1998 />

From the mid-1960s Pynchon also regularly provided [[blurbs]] and introductions for a wide range of novels and non-fiction works. He contributed an appreciation of [[Oakley Hall]]'s ''[[Warlock (Hall novel)|Warlock]]'' in a feature called "A Gift of Books" in the December 1965 issue of ''[[Holiday (magazine)|Holiday]]''. Pynchon wrote that Hall "has restored to the myth of [[Gunfight at the O.K. Corral|Tombstone]] its full, mortal, blooded humanity&nbsp;... It is this deep sensitivity to abysses that makes ''Warlock'', I think, one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall’s to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall."<ref>{{Cite news |date=December 1965 |title="A Gift of Books" by Edward Albee, Joseph Heller, Alfred Kazin, Thomas Pynchon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and others |work=[[Holiday (magazine)|Holiday]] |url=https://holidaymag.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/a-gift-of-books-by-edward-albee-joseph-heller-alfred-kazin-thomas-pynchon-isaac-bashevis-singer-and-others-december-1965/ |access-date=April 17, 2023 |archive-date=April 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404010623/https://holidaymag.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/a-gift-of-books-by-edward-albee-joseph-heller-alfred-kazin-thomas-pynchon-isaac-bashevis-singer-and-others-december-1965/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In December 1965, Pynchon politely turned down an invitation from [[Stanley Edgar Hyman]] to teach literature at [[Bennington College]], writing that he had resolved, two or three years earlier, to write three novels at once. Pynchon described the decision as "a moment of temporary insanity", but noted that he was "too stubborn to let any of them go, let alone all of them."<ref name=mclemee2006>{{cite web|last1=McLemee|first1=Scott|title=You Hide, They Seek|url=https://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee158|website=Inside Higher Ed|access-date=September 26, 2014|archive-date=April 3, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403132203/https://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee158|url-status=live}}</ref>

Pynchon's second novel, ''The Crying of Lot 49'', was published a few months later in 1966. Whether it was one of the three or four novels Pynchon had in progress is not known, but in a 1965 letter to Donadio, Pynchon had written that he was in the middle of writing a "[[potboiler]]". When the book grew to 155 pages, he called it "a short story, but with gland trouble", and hoped that Donadio could "unload it on some poor sucker."<ref name=gussow1998 />

''The Crying of Lot 49'' won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award shortly after publication.<ref name=kihss1974>{{cite news|last1=Kihss|first1=Peter|title=Pulitzer Jurors Dismayed on Pynchon|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 8, 1974|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/05/08/archives/pulitzer-jurors-his-third-novel.html|access-date=September 19, 2017|archive-date=July 31, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731120909/http://www.nytimes.com/1974/05/08/archives/pulitzer-jurors-his-third-novel.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Awards: Literature |url=https://artsandletters.org/awards/?awdpage=literature |website=American Academy of Arts and Letters |access-date=January 14, 2022 |archive-date=January 14, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220114180031/https://artsandletters.org/awards/?awdpage=literature |url-status=live }}</ref> Although more concise and linear in its structure than Pynchon's other novels, its labyrinthine plot features an ancient, underground mail service known as "The Tristero" or "Trystero", a parody of a [[Revenge play|Jacobean revenge drama]] called ''The Courier's Tragedy'', and a corporate conspiracy involving the bones of [[World War II]] American [[GIs]] being used as charcoal [[cigarette filter]]s. It proposes a series of seemingly incredible connections between these events and other similarly bizarre revelations that confront the novel's protagonist, Oedipa Maas. Like ''V.'', the novel contains a wealth of references to science and technology and to obscure historical events. ''The Crying of Lot 49'' also continues Pynchon's habits of writing satiric song lyrics and referencing [[popular culture]]. An example of both can be seen in [[The Crying of Lot 49#Vladimir Nabokov|allusion]] to the narrator of Nabokov's ''[[Lolita]]'' in the lyric of a love lament sung by a member of "The Paranoids", an American teenage band who deliberately sing their songs with British accents (p.&nbsp;17). Despite Pynchon's alleged dislike, ''Lot 49'' received positive reviews; [[Harold Bloom]] named it one of Pynchon's "canonical works", along with ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]'' and ''[[Mason & Dixon]]''. It was included on ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''<nowiki/>'s list of the 100 best English-language novels published since the magazine's founding in 1923. Richard Lacayao wrote, "With its slapstick paranoia and heartbreaking metaphysical soliloquies, ''Lot 49'' takes place in the tragicomic universe that is instantly recognizable as Pynchon-land. Is it also a mystery novel? Absolutely, so long as you recognize the mystery here is the one at the heart of everything".<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=All-TIME 100 Novels |language=en-US |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/all/ |access-date=April 9, 2023 |issn=0040-781X}}</ref>

In June 1966, Pynchon wrote a first-hand report on the aftermath and legacy of the [[Watts Riots]] in Los Angeles, titled "A Journey Into the Mind of Watts", and published in ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]''.<ref name=pynchon1966>{{cite news|last1=Pynchon|first1=Thomas|title=A Journey into the Mind of Watts|url=http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html|work=The New York Times Magazine|date=June 12, 1966|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060219074830/http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html|archive-date=February 19, 2006}}</ref>

A negative aspect that Pynchon retrospectively found in the [[hippie movement]], both in the form of the Beats of the 1950s and the resurgence form of the 1960s, was that it "placed too much emphasis on youth, including the eternal variety."<ref name=pynchon1984 />

In 1968, Pynchon was one of 447 signatories to the "[[Writers and Editors War Tax Protest]]". Full-page advertisements in the ''[[New York Post]]'' and ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'' listed the names of those who had pledged not to pay "the proposed 10% income tax surcharge or any war-designated tax increase", and stated their belief "that American involvement in Vietnam is morally wrong".<ref name=wartax>{{cite web|title=Writers and Editors War Tax Protest Names|url=http://www.nwtrcc.org/history/writers-and-editors-names.php|website=National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee|access-date=September 26, 2014|archive-date=September 9, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909194322/http://www.nwtrcc.org/history/writers-and-editors-names.php|url-status=live}}</ref>

====1970s====
{{Main|Gravity's Rainbow}}
[[File:Gravity's Rainbow (1973 1st ed cover).jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Book cover illustration of a London cityscape below a glowing yellow spiral in a red sky|''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]'' (1973)]]
Pynchon's most famous novel is his third, ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]'', published in 1973. An intricate and allusive fiction that combines and elaborates on many of the themes of his earlier work, including [[preterition]], [[paranoia]], [[racism]], [[colonialism]], [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy]], [[synchronicity]], and [[entropy]],<ref name="platerbook">{{cite book|last1=Plater|first1=William M.|title=Grim Phoenix: Reconstructing Thomas Pynchon|url=https://archive.org/details/grimphoenixrecon0000plat|url-access=registration|date=1978|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-32670-6}}</ref><ref name="chambersbook">{{cite book|last1=Chambers|first1=Judith|title=Thomas Pynchon|date=1992|publisher=Twayne Publishers|isbn=978-0-8057-3960-2}}</ref> there is a wealth of commentary and critical material, including reader's guides,<ref name="fowlerbook">{{cite book|last1=Fowler|first1=Douglas|title=A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow|date=1980|publisher=Ardis Press|isbn=978-0-88233-405-9}}</ref><ref name="weisenburgerbook">{{cite book|last1=Weisenburger|first1=Steven C.|title=A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel|url=https://archive.org/details/gravitysrainbowc0000weis|url-access=registration|date=1988|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-1026-8}}</ref> books and scholarly articles, online concordances and discussions, and art works. Its artistic value is often compared to that of [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]''.<ref name=ruch2001>{{cite web|last1=Ruch |first1=Allen |title=Introduction to GR |url=http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_grintro.html |website=The Modern Word |access-date=September 26, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100915171907/http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_grintro.html |archive-date=September 15, 2010 }}</ref> Some scholars have hailed it as the greatest American post-WW2 novel,<ref name=almansibook>{{cite book|last1=Almansi|first1=Guido|title=L'estetica dell'osceno|date=1994|publisher=Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi|page=226}}</ref> and it has similarly been described as "literally an anthology of postmodernist themes and devices".<ref name=mchalebook>{{cite book|last1=McHale|first1=Brian|title=Postmodernist Fiction|date=1987|publisher=Methuen|location=New York|isbn=978-0-415-04513-1|page=16}}</ref> [[Richard Locke (critic)|Richard Locke]], reviewing it in ''[[The New York Times]]'', wrote that ''"Gravity's Rainbow'' is longer, darker and more difficult than his first two books; in fact it is the longest, most difficult and most ambitious novel to appear in these pages since [[Nabokov]]'s ''[[Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle|Ada]]'' four years ago; its technical and verbal resources bring to mind [[Herman Melville|Melville]] and [[Faulkner]]."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Locke |first=Richard |date=March 11, 1973 |title=One of the Longest, Most Difficult, Most Ambitious Novels in Years |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html?module=inline |access-date=April 16, 2023 |archive-date=April 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230416234030/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html?module=inline |url-status=live }}</ref>

The major portion of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' takes place in Europe in the final months of [[World War II]] and the weeks immediately following [[VE Day]], and is narrated for the most part from within the historical moment in which it is set. In this way, Pynchon's text enacts a type of [[irony|dramatic irony]] whereby neither the characters nor the various [[narrator|narrative voices]] are aware of specific historical circumstances, such as the [[Holocaust]] and, except as hints, premonitions and mythography, the complicity between Western corporate interests and the Nazi war machine, which figure prominently in readers' apprehensions of the novel's historical context. For example, at war's end the narrator observes: "There are rumors of a War Crimes Tribunal under way in Nürnberg. No one Slothrop has listened to is clear who's trying whom for what ..." (p.&nbsp;681). Such an approach generates dynamic tension and moments of acute self-consciousness, as both reader and author seem drawn ever deeper into the "[[Plot (narrative)|plot]]", in various senses of that term:

{{blockquote|Pynchon presents us with a Disney-meets-Bosch panorama of European politics, American entropy, industrial history, and libidinal panic which leaves a chaotic whirl of fractal patterns in the reader's mind.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Pettman|first1=Dominic|editor1-last=Bertens|editor1-first=Hans|editor2-last=Natoli|editor2-first=Joseph|title=Postmodernism: The Key Figures|date=2002|publisher=Blackwell Publishers|location=Massachusetts|isbn=978-0-631-21796-1|pages=261–266|chapter=Thomas Pynchon}}</ref>}}
{{Quote box|align=left|width=200px|quote=If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.|source=–''Gravity's Rainbow''|salign=right}}

The novel invokes anti-authority sentiments, often through violations of narrative conventions and integrity. For example, as the protagonist, Tyrone Slothrop, considers the fact that his own family "made its money killing trees", he apostrophizes his apology and plea for advice to the [[coppice]] within which he has momentarily taken refuge. In an overt incitement to [[Eco-anarchism|eco-activism]], Pynchon's narrative agency then has it that "a medium-sized pine nearby nods its top and suggests, 'Next time you come across a logging operation out here, find one of their tractors that isn't being guarded, and take its oil filter with you. That's what you can do.'" (p.&nbsp;553)

Encyclopedic in scope and often self-conscious in style, the novel displays erudition in its treatment of an array of material drawn from the fields of [[psychology]], [[chemistry]], [[mathematics]], [[history]], [[religion]], [[music]], [[literature]], human sexuality, and [[film]]. Pynchon wrote the first draft of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in "neat, tiny script on engineer's [[Graph paper#Formats|quadrille paper]]".<ref name=weisenburgerbook /> Pynchon worked on the novel throughout the 1960s and early 1970s while he was living in California and Mexico City.

''Gravity's Rainbow'' shared the 1974 [[National Book Award]] with ''[[A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories]]'' by [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]] (split award).<ref name=nba1974/> That same year, the [[Pulitzer Prize|Pulitzer Prize For Fiction]] panel unanimously recommended ''Gravity's Rainbow'' for the award, but the Pulitzer board vetoed the jury's recommendation, describing the novel as "unreadable", "turgid", "overwritten", and in parts "obscene".<ref name=kihss1974/> (No Pulitzer Prize For Fiction was awarded that year and finalists were not recognized before 1980.)<ref name=pulitzer>[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction "Fiction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160103055018/http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction |date=January 3, 2016 }}. ''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved March 29, 2012.</ref> In 1975, Pynchon declined the [[William Dean Howells Medal]].<ref name=postindustrial>{{cite journal|last=Slade|first=Joseph W.|title=Thomas Pynchon, Postindustrial Humanist|journal=Technology and Culture|volume=23|issue=1|date=Jan 1982|pages=53–72|doi=10.2307/3104443|jstor=3104443|s2cid=146989742 }}</ref> Along with ''Lot 49'', ''Gravity's Rainbow'' was included on ''Time''<nowiki/>'s list of the 100 greatest English-language novels published since the magazine's founding, with [[Lev Grossman]] and Richard Lacayao commenting on its "fantastic multitude of meditations upon the human need to build systems of intellectual order even as we use the same powers of intellect to hasten our destruction. (Did we mention that this is also a comedy, more or less?) Among American writers of the second half of the 20th century, Pynchon is the indisputed candidate for lasting literary greatness. This book is why."<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=All-TIME 100 Best Novels |language= |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/all/ |access-date=April 9, 2023 |issn=0040-781X}}</ref>

His earliest American ancestor, [[William Pynchon]], emigrated to the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] with the [[Winthrop Fleet]] in 1630, then became the founder of [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], in 1636, and thereafter a long line of Pynchon descendants found wealth and repute on American soil. Aspects of Pynchon's ancestry and family background have partially inspired his fiction writing, particularly in the Slothrop family histories related in the short story "[[Slow Learner|The Secret Integration]]" (1964) and ''Gravity's Rainbow''.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

===Later career===
[[File:Slow Learner (1984 1st ed cover).jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Book cover illustration of a massive white fountain pen seated on a bicycle|''[[Slow Learner]]'' (1984)]]
A collection of Pynchon's early short stories, ''[[Slow Learner]]'', was published in 1984, with a lengthy [[autobiographical]] introduction. In October of the same year, an article titled "Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?" was published in ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html |date=October 28, 1984 |title=Is It O.K. To Be A Luddite? |first=Thomas |last=Pynchon |work=The New York Times |access-date=October 24, 2016 |archive-date=December 6, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161206141725/http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In April 1988, Pynchon reviewed [[Gabriel García Márquez]]'s ''[[Love in the Time of Cholera]]'' in ''[[The New York Times]]'', calling it "a shining and heartbreaking book."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/10/books/the-heart-s-eternal-vow.html?pagewanted=all |title=The Heart's Eternal Vow |first=Thomas |last=Pynchon |date=April 10, 1988 |work=The New York Times |access-date=February 13, 2017 |archive-date=April 24, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170424025629/http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/10/books/the-heart-s-eternal-vow.html?pagewanted=all |url-status=live }}</ref> Another article, titled "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee", was published in June 1993 in ''The New York Times Book Review'', as one in a series of articles in which various writers reflected on each of the [[Seven Deadly Sins]]. Pynchon's subject was "[[Seven deadly sins|Sloth]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-sloth.html |date=June 6, 1993 |title=The Deadly Sins/Sloth; Nearer, My Couch, to Thee |first=Thomas |last=Pynchon |work=The New York Times |access-date=October 24, 2016 |archive-date=February 1, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201052724/http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-sloth.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1989, Pynchon was one of many authors who signed a letter of solidarity with [[Salman Rushdie]] after Rushdie was sentenced to death by the [[Ruhollah Khomeini|Ayatollah]] for his novel ''[[The Satanic Verses]]''. Pynchon wrote: "I pray that tolerance and respect for life prevail. I keep thinking of you."<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 12, 1989 |title=Words for Salman Rushdie |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-words.html?_r=1&oref=slogin |access-date=April 4, 2023 |archive-date=April 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404010037/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-words.html?_r=1&oref=slogin |url-status=live }}</ref>

====''Vineland''====
{{Main|Vineland}}
Pynchon's fourth novel, ''[[Vineland]]'', was published in 1990 and disappointed some fans and critics. It did, however, receive a positive review from Salman Rushdie, who called it "free-flowing and light and funny and maybe the most readily accessible piece of writing the old Invisible Man ever came up with&nbsp;... the entropy's still flowing, but there is something new to report, some faint possibility of redemption, some fleeting hints of happiness and grace. Thomas Pynchon, like [[Paul Simon]]'s girl in New York City, who calls herself the Human Trampoline, is bouncing into Graceland."<ref>{{Cite news author=last=[[Salman Rushdie]] |date=January 14, 1990 |title=Still Crazy After All These Years |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-vineland.html |access-date=January 5, 2023 |archive-date=November 1, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101125235/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-vineland.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The novel is set in California in the 1980s and 1960s and describes the relationship between an [[FBI]] [[COINTELPRO]] agent and a female radical filmmaker. Its strong socio-political undercurrents detail the constant battle between [[authoritarianism]] and [[Communalism (Bookchin)|communalism]], and the nexus between [[resistance movement|resistance]] and complicity, but with a typically Pynchonian sense of humor.<ref name=berressembook>{{cite book|last1=Berressem|first1=Hanjo|title=Pynchon's Poetics: Interfacing Theory and Text|date=1992|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana and Chicago|isbn=978-0-252-01919-7|pages=236–7}}</ref>

In 1988, he received a [[MacArthur Fellowship]] and, since the early 1990s at least, he has been frequently cited as a contender for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref name=gray1993>{{cite news|last1=Gray|first1=Paul|title=Rooms of Their Own|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979434,00.html|access-date=September 26, 2014|work=Time Magazine|date=October 18, 1993|archive-date=August 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814012213/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979434,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=duvallbook>{{cite book|editor1-last=Duvall|editor1-first=John N.|title=Productive Postmodernism: Consuming Histories and Cultural Studies|date=2002|publisher=State University of New York Press|location=Albany|isbn=978-0-7914-5193-9|page=76}}</ref><ref name=rising2008>{{cite news|last1=Rising|first1=Malin|title=Nobel literature: Will an American win after all?|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-10-09-83478680_x.htm|access-date=September 26, 2014|work=USA Today|date=October 9, 2008|archive-date=September 23, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923180649/http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-10-09-83478680_x.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Pynchon provided a blurb for [[Don DeLillo]]'s novel ''[[Mao II]]'', about a reclusive novelist and partly inspired by the [[Satanic Verses controversy|fatwa]] on Salman Rushdie: "This novel's a beauty. DeLillo takes us on a breathtaking journey, beyond all the official versions of our daily history, behind all the easy assumptions about who we're supposed to be, with a vision as bold and a voice as eloquent and morally focused as any in American writing."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Blurbs From Thomas Pynchon |url=http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/blurbs.html |access-date=April 19, 2023 |website=www.pynchon.pomona.edu |archive-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419194218/http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/blurbs.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

====''Mason & Dixon''====
{{Main|Mason & Dixon}}
{{multiple image
 | total_width = 320
 | image1 = Mason & Dixon (1997 1st ed jacket cover).jpg
 | alt1 = Book cover illustration zoomed in on the ampersand between the words "Mason & Dixon" written in ink on parchment

 | image2 = Mason and Dixon.png
 | alt2 = Stippled illustration of two men on a hill overseeing the American wilderness

 | footer = ''[[Mason & Dixon]]'' (1997) is a fictionalized account of the lives of [[Charles Mason]] and [[Jeremiah Dixon]], the historical surveyors of the [[Mason–Dixon line]].}}

The meticulously researched novel is a sprawling [[postmodern literature|postmodernist]] saga recounting the lives and careers of the English astronomer [[Charles Mason]] and his partner, the surveyor [[Jeremiah Dixon]], whose survey of the American West resulted in the [[Mason–Dixon line]], during the birth of the [[American Revolution|American Republic]]. The dust jacket notes that it features appearances from [[George Washington]], [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[Samuel Johnson]] and a talking dog. Some commentators acknowledged it as a welcome return to form; [[T. C. Boyle]] called it "the old Pynchon, the true Pynchon, the best Pynchon of all" and "a book of heart and fire and genius."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Boyle |first=T. C. |date=May 18, 1997 |title=The Great Divide |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/970518.18boylet.html |access-date=January 5, 2023 |archive-date=January 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105195700/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/970518.18boylet.html |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Michiko Kakutani]] called Mason and Dixon Pynchon's most human characters, writing that they "become fully fleshed-out people, their feelings, hopes and yearnings made as palpably real as their outrageously comic high jinks."<ref name="Kakutani">{{Cite news |last=Kakutani |first=Michiko |date=April 29, 1997 |title=Pynchon Hits the Road With Mason and Dixon |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/27/daily/pynchon-book-review.html?_r=1&oref=slogin |access-date=March 20, 2023 |archive-date=March 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320231744/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/27/daily/pynchon-book-review.html?_r=1&oref=slogin |url-status=live }}</ref> The American critic [[Harold Bloom]] hailed the novel as Pynchon's "masterpiece to date".<ref name=bloom2003>{{cite book|last1=Bloom|first1=Harold|title=Thomas Pynchon|date=2003|publisher=Chelsea House|isbn=978-0-7910-7030-7}}</ref> Bloom named Pynchon as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with [[Cormac McCarthy]], [[Philip Roth]] and [[Don DeLillo]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Pierce |first=Leonard |date=June 15, 2009 |title=Harold Bloom on ''Blood Meridian'' |newspaper=[[The A.V. Club]] |url=http://www.avclub.com/articles/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian,29214/ |access-date=August 27, 2013 |archive-date=November 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105103802/http://www.avclub.com/articles/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian,29214/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Bloom |first=Harold |date=September 24, 2003 |title=Dumbing down American readers |url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers |work=The Boston Globe |access-date=September 23, 2015 |archive-date=March 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160320210202/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/ |url-status=live }}</ref> For ''[[The Independent]]'' feature Book Of A Lifetime, [[Marek Kohn]] chose ''Mason & Dixon'' "precisely because my own teens were long gone by the time it came out: it showed me that being exhilarated by prose is not just an effect of youthful overexcitement."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kohn |first=Marek |date=June 4, 2010 |title=Book Of A Lifetime: Mason & Dixon, By Thomas Pynchon |work=[[The Independent]] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-mason-dixon-by-thomas-pynchon-1990622.html |access-date=April 25, 2023 |archive-date=April 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425221347/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-mason-dixon-by-thomas-pynchon-1990622.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

====''Against the Day''====
{{Main|Against the Day}}
A variety of rumors pertaining to the subject matter of ''[[Against the Day]]'' circulated for a number of years. Most specific of these were comments made by the former German minister of culture [[Michael Naumann]], who stated that he assisted Pynchon in his research about "a Russian mathematician [who] studied for [[David Hilbert]] in [[Göttingen]]", and that the new novel would trace the life and loves of [[Sofia Kovalevskaya]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Makowsky |first1=Johann A. |title=Modernism, Fiction and Mathematics |journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society |date=2020 |volume=67 |issue=10 |page=1593 |doi=10.1090/noti2170 |s2cid=196470810 |quote=the latter contains a lot of mathematical material pertaining to Sofia Kovalevskaya and to Hilbert’s school in Göttingen. Pynchon seemingly researched this material with the help of Michael Naumann,|doi-access=free }}</ref>

In July 2006, a new, untitled novel by Pynchon was announced along with a description written by Pynchon himself: "Spanning the period between the [[Chicago World's Fair of 1893]] and the years just after [[World War I]], this novel moves from the [[Colorado Labor Wars|labor troubles in Colorado]] to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the times of the mysterious [[Tunguska Event]], Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all. With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." He promised cameos by [[Nikola Tesla]], [[Bela Lugosi]] and [[Groucho Marx]], as well as "stupid songs" and "strange sexual practices". Subsequently, the title of the new book was reported to be ''Against the Day'' and a Penguin spokesperson confirmed that the synopsis was Pynchon's.<ref name=patterson2006>{{cite web|last1=Patterson|first1=Troy|title=The Pynchon Post|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/07/the_pynchon_post.html|website=Slate|date=July 19, 2006|access-date=September 26, 2014|archive-date=September 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914192403/http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/07/the_pynchon_post.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=italie2006>{{cite news|last1=Italie|first1=Hillel|title=New Thomas Pynchon Novel is on the way|agency=Associated Press|date=July 20, 2006}}</ref>

''Against the Day'' was released on November 21, 2006, and is 1,085 pages long in the first edition hardcover. The book was given almost no promotion by Penguin and professional book reviewers were given little time in advance to review the book. An edited version of Pynchon's synopsis was used as the jacket-flap copy and Kovalevskaya does appear, although as only one of over a hundred characters.

Composed in part of a series of interwoven pastiches of popular fiction genres from the era in which it is set, the novel inspired mixed reactions from critics and reviewers. One reviewer remarked, "It is brilliant, but it is exhaustingly brilliant."<ref name=leith2006>{{cite news|last1=Leith|first1=Sam|title=Pinning down Pynchon|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/dec/02/thomaspynchon|access-date=September 26, 2014|work=The Guardian|date=December 1, 2006|archive-date=September 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140928203715/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/dec/02/thomaspynchon|url-status=live}}</ref> Other reviewers described ''Against the Day'' as "lengthy and rambling"<ref name=wood2007>{{cite news|last1=Wood|first1=Michael|title=Humming along|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n01/michael-wood/humming-along|access-date=September 26, 2014|work=London Review of Books|issue=1|date=January 4, 2007|volume=29|archive-date=October 3, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141003235117/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n01/michael-wood/humming-along|url-status=live}}</ref> and "a baggy monster of a book",<ref name=sante2007>{{cite news|last1=Sante|first1=Luc|title=Inside the Time Machine|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/jan/11/inside-the-time-machine/?pagination=false|access-date=September 26, 2014|work=The New York Review of Books|date=January 11, 2007|archive-date=April 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402231931/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/jan/11/inside-the-time-machine/?pagination=false|url-status=live}}</ref> while negative appraisals condemned the novel for its "silliness"<ref name=kirsch2006>{{cite news|last1=Kirsch|first1=Adam|title=Pynchon: He Who Lives By the List, Dies by It|url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/pynchon-he-who-lives-by-the-list-dies-by-it/43545/|access-date=September 26, 2014|work=The New York Sun|date=November 15, 2006|archive-date=October 18, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141018064146/http://www.nysun.com/arts/pynchon-he-who-lives-by-the-list-dies-by-it/43545/|url-status=live}}</ref> or characterized its action as "fairly pointless" and remained unimpressed by its "grab bag of themes".<ref name=miller2006>{{cite web|last1=Miller|first1=Laura|title=The fall of the house of Pynchon|url=http://www.salon.com/2006/11/21/pynchon_3/|website=Salon.com|date=November 21, 2006|access-date=September 26, 2014|archive-date=October 17, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017052501/http://www.salon.com/2006/11/21/pynchon_3/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2006, Pynchon wrote a letter defending [[Ian McEwan]] against charges of plagiarism in his novel ''[[Atonement (novel)|Atonement]]'': "Oddly enough, those of us who write historical fiction do feel some obligation to accuracy. It is that Ruskin business about 'a capacity of responsiveness to the claims of fact, but unoppressed by them.' Unless we were actually there, we must turn to people who were, or to letters, contemporary reporting, the encyclopedia, the Internet, until, with luck, at some point, we can begin to make a few things of our own up. To discover in the course of research some engaging detail we know can be put into a story where it will do some good can hardly be classed as a felonious act-- it is simply what we do."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Reynolds |first=Nigel |date=December 6, 2006 |title=Recluse speaks out to defend McEwan |work=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1536152/Recluse-speaks-out-to-defend-McEwan.html |access-date=April 4, 2018 |archive-date=February 27, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227054840/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1536152/Recluse-speaks-out-to-defend-McEwan.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

====''Inherent Vice''====
{{Main|Inherent Vice|Inherent Vice (film)}}
''[[Inherent Vice]]'' was published in August 2009.

A synopsis and brief extract from the novel, along with the novel's title, ''Inherent Vice'', and dust jacket image, were printed in Penguin Press' Summer 2009 catalogue. The book was advertised by the publisher as "part-[[hardboiled|noir]], part-[[psychedelia|psychedelic]] romp, all Thomas Pynchon—[[private investigator|private eye]] Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a [[cannabis (drug)|cannabis]] haze to watch the end of an era as [[free love]] slips away and [[paranoia]] creeps in with the L.A. fog."

A promotional video for the novel was released by Penguin Books on August 4, 2009, with the character voiceover narrated by Pynchon himself.<ref name="kurutz2009">{{cite news |last1=Kurutz |first1=Steven |date=August 11, 2009 |title=Yup, It's Him: A Pynchon Mystery Solved |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/08/11/pynchon-revealed/ |access-date=September 26, 2014 |archive-date=February 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150202012856/http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/08/11/pynchon-revealed/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

A 2014 film adaptation of the [[Inherent Vice (film)|same name]] was directed by [[Paul Thomas Anderson]].

====''Bleeding Edge''====
{{main|Bleeding Edge (novel)}}
''Bleeding Edge'' takes place in Manhattan's [[Silicon Alley]] during "the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of [[September 11 attacks|September 11]]." The novel was published on September 17, 2013,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/pynchon-takes-on-silicon-alley/|title=Pynchon Takes On Silicon Alley|last=Alden|first=William|date=February 25, 2013|website=DealBook|publisher=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=August 21, 2013|archive-date=July 7, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130707173507/http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/pynchon-takes-on-silicon-alley/|url-status=live}}</ref> to positive reviews.

====''Shadow Ticket''====
In April 2025, [[Penguin Press]] announced a new novel from Pynchon, titled ''Shadow Ticket'', with a synopsis, due for publication in October 2025.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Alter |first1=Alexandra |title=Thomas Pynchon to Publish a New Novel This Fall |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/books/thomas-pynchon-new-novel-shadow-ticket.html |access-date=10 April 2025 |date=9 April 2025 |language=en}}</ref> The novel, which is set in 1932, centers on a Milwaukee [[private investigator]] who is set adrift in Hungary while he is tracking the heiress to a [[Wisconsin cheese]] fortune.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Temple |first1=Emily |title=Thomas Pynchon is publishing a new novel this fall. |url=https://lithub.com/thomas-pynchon-is-publishing-a-new-novel-this-fall/ |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Literary Hub |date=9 April 2025}}</ref>