Pynchon, Thomas (1937-…), is a leading American novelist noted for his dense style that makes extreme demands on the reader. The difficulty of his works is intensified by the mass of information he pours into his plots as well as shifting narrative points of view and highly technical language and science-based symbols.
Pynchon’s reputation rests on only a few novels. Although they typically feature comic—even outrageous—episodes, the works are generally pessimistic in tone. The complex narratives portray modern society in chaos and heading toward destruction. Pynchon’s characters often face huge evil conspiracies that may be real or fantasies.
Pynchon made an immediate impact on the literary scene with his first novel, V. (1963). Among the novel’s many plots is a character’s search for a mysterious female known only as V. Pynchon’s next novel, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), is a complicated story about a woman who tries to uncover a secret organization called “Tristero” and its underground communications system.
Many critics consider Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) to be Pynchon’s masterpiece. This huge novel takes place in London at the end of World War II in 1945 and in postwar Germany. It deals with an international conspiracy that dominates the world through missile technology.
Vineland (1990) is a novel set in the 1980’s. The story reflects on the counterculture world of California during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Mason & Dixon (1997) is a parody of the English novel of the 1700’s, though with many references to the modern day. The novel follows the adventures of the real-life English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon as they map regions of North America during the 1760’s. The novel Against the Day (2006) is set in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. Inherent Vice (2009) is a crime novel that takes place on the California coast in 1970. It has a large cast of characters and features a seedy private investigator who lives in a world of drug use, surfing, and gangsters. The novel Bleeding Edge (2013) follows the offbeat adventures of a fraud investigator in New York City in 2001, against the background of the early days of the Internet. A collection of Pynchon’s short stories was published as Slow Learner (1984).
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr., was born on May 8, 1937, in Glen Cove, New York. He graduated from Cornell University in 1959 with a B.A. degree. Pynchon is an intensely private person who refuses to provide biographical information about himself. He keeps his whereabouts secret from everyone but his closest friends.
