Against the Blog: A Dose of Pynchon

*****

So, it's been a few years since I picked up Gravity's Rainbow and became obsessed with Thomas Pynchon. Since then, I've read V. and loved it (Thank you, Jennifer!), but I couldn't quite say it was "another Gravity's Rainbow." It's sort of like reading James Joyce's Ulysses and then reading Dubliners. I mean, Dubliners was a great. Each story introduced a cultural texture that absolutely defined several independent literary genres to follow. Alas, though, it wasn't Ulysses. Just the same, V. was a lot of fun and captured all of the great post-modern, hyper-intelligencia of Pynchon and it was centered around parts of Virginia that I grew up around, such as Newport News...it just wasn't 'Gravity's Rainbow.'

When I picked up a copy of Against the Day, Pynchon's 2006 release, this winter, I thought to myself "Hmmm....I wonder if this is as good as V."

Little did I know, some several months later I would be wondering "Is this 'As Good As' or (oh, dare I say it?) 'Better Than' Gravity's Rainbow?" Now, I'm just not sure you can rate the two like that. It's certainly a neck-and-neck race between the two, but the difference is more one of quality than quantity.

Against the Day, much like Gravity's Rainbow, requires that the reader have a certain amount of curiosity and lust for knowledge, because there's almost no possibility that any given reader will understand more than a particular portion of the occult references that are made. The internet is truly the reader's best friend as (s)he seeks to figure out what Pynchon is talking about at some points. Again alikening the book to Joyce's Ulysses, there are nested references to obscure texts and belief systems whose basic tenents are required to be at least somewhat understood in order for the reader to follow the text.

Luckily, a cult of Pynchon readers have come together to produce Pynchonwiki - a collective internet resource for documenting and questioning exactly what in tarnations Pynchon may be talking about in any given passage. So, since we don't have to wonder what his meanings are, we can, instead, focus on the worlds that he is creating.

So, my friends, I bring to you: Balloon-Punk. Much like cyberpunk or steampunk, there is a rapid-paced trickster-tricks-the-trickster sort of back-drop, but against it there is a late 19th- and early 20th-century backdrop instead of the typical late 20th or early 21st century storyline that you would find in a William Gibson (see Neuromancer) or Bruce Sterling (see Schismatrix) story. And, instead of a 21st-century-in-the-20th sort of storyline, there is an accelerated and particular story of things that actually happened during WW2 taking place against a backdrop of "Around the World in 80 Days."

Oh, plus there some weird-ass technology that allows people to "SCUBA" through the desert. Don't ask me, I don't know. Just read it. I swear. To clarify, I'm not talking about a "Steampunk" sort of backdrop (again reference Gibson and Sterling, this time in the "Difference Engine"). No, instead, this is a bonified story of kids against the day, much like "Around the World in 80 Days," except now they are running into such surreal nonsense as talking dogs, "SCUBA" gear that takes them under the sands in the desert and all other sort of oddities. Yes, Pynchon does it again.

Much like "Gravity's Rainbow," we now have a story of one or two dozen odd characters thrown up against one or two even odder worldscapes.

Don't expect to finish this book and feel like you finally understand what Pynchon is trying to get across. If Pynchon succeeds in his quest, you will feel far more confused about what in Hell he might have been talking about. The characters portray a convincing troupe and the world they live in so very much like our own. The difference, in the long run, is that whatever it is you think you understand about Chick, Deuce, Traverse or Nikolai Tesla will (at one point or another) be proven to be absolute horsesh&!@.

Cheers!