Good evening, lit. It's nearing five years since Mr Pynchon's last book. If we're to look at the time between each release, what do you know, it can be anywhere between three to seventeen years -- at the extremes. Having available to us periods of time between the relatively shorter novels and longer tomes (CoL49 to GR, Vinland to M&D, so on....), we can expect a rough estimate of seven or so years.
Now make no mistake, Mr Pynchon is a fit enough guy. Any fears you might have -- of mortality, entropy of the body, something like an eventual dimming of vital lights there's no negotiating the terms of -- they don't have to be given so much attention as they might be. Let's not get too funky on Worry, then. Sure, it's been five years since Bleeding Edge. Sure, he may or may not be eighty or so years of age. But for now, let's on party on, wild-eyed as ever, before anything like anxiety, or, even worse, NIHILISM, comes to play. There's still time.
That being said, the abstract question, lurking un-movable as a zeppelin hanging in girthful finality in the sky, whether you acknowledge it's presence or not, is; what's the next novel gonna be about?
No doubt it's coming, alright. Nevertheless, most can be made is speculation. But that's fine, far as I'm concerned -- concerned as much am I. Are there any thoughts on what it's going to be about? Thematic palettes? Characters? Same old organisations inserting their digits into world scenarios they have no real business with, a side-ways grin on their mugs as they curl their forefinger back and forth suggestively....? Possible plotlines? Will it be as real world as anything, or a revisionist sort of historicised novel, featuring slightly contrary to real events? Whacky or serious? Who's to say a happy return to a more 70's era style of eccentricism isn't in order?
If we look at the chronological trajectory of thematic content, he's always kept the page-count open to whatever world-defining periods of conflict require. WWI... WWII…. Who ever said the Cold War isn't next up on the list of world-scenarios? You've got everything in place, barely any authorial planning needed. There are Ideologues, those deeply marred Ideas with backs broken from the singular burden of histories too vast to be fathomed by anyone *let alone themselves as conscious ideas*... You've got Ruskis, Germs, Americanos, a shattered Europe, humpty-dumpty, never to be put together quite the same... An economy under siege by barrages of self-directed questions... Blunderingly made War Decisions whose girths proved large enough to make the entire Karmic Scale turn feminist... Strange, and not altogether un-interesting reports of lifeforms never before seen or heard of, let alone imagined (and not only from space, but, too all effects even more worryingly, Our Very Own Planet…) Not to mention our all time favourite: Nuclear Threat. And on top of all this, couldn't we pick up again from where we left off, that being the Zone?....
Discuss.
Pynchon's next novel
are pynchon and gene wolfe the only great authors still alive and working?
who else is there that even comes close to them?
Don Delillo
John Banville
László Krasznahorkai
Wolfe's not great anymore
Mr P always explores realms where reality breaks down, be it the fog of war, conspiracy theories, the alternate reality of media depiction etc. I'm personally very interested in the bleeding edge of high physics where reality itself is called into question, where the Strong Anthropic principle seems to be gaining traction, or other theories that postulate that reality is an illusion created from absolute chaos because our conscious experience transects the set of states in the chaos which seem to make "sense" and form a narrative, although they are completely disconnected from each other. I think he would be aware of this and dive into the subject, at least as a way of commenting on the current mess.
damn really?
Magris
Me
Is Bleeding Edge any good?
Japanese Insurance Adjuster
underground. the only place left. mining town was an excellent theme someone mentioned several months ago on Veeky Forums. think it would do well with you-his purposes.
I love americans who don't read and don't know anything about literature and yet still think they should give their opinions
cameo appearance by Akira Kurosawa
>mining town
Against the Day, having been set for the majority of the first half *in* various Colorado/Western US mining towns, puts that out of the picture.
You'll have to come to your own conclusion
Is Bleeding Edge good? Never see anyone talk about it.
sorta
Adding to this, it depends on the level of time you're willing to spend putting yourself back and forth into modes of paranoia/hard rationality as you read. Go read it. It's not as if it's bad. But people are divided on what it means for his whole body of work.
the clinton era
as much as i'd love for him to go out on one final big masterpiece, i also really don't want to hear him talk about trump and Veeky Forums. i know he knows but i don't want to know he knows. doesn't really matter though he'll probably just die
That's really impressive OP, but you're not the Pinchmeister. trying way too hard.
idk I think a book with Trump themes could be pretty good. obviously I don't want the contemporary progressive "le drumpf is bad XD" type of shit but I really wouldn't expect something that banal from the pynch. Trump's America feels like a pynchon novel.
>president is literally an overweight reality show host
>rumors about Trump participating in a russian golden shower orgy
>he gets most of his opinions and advice from news media, which is more omnipresent than ever
>Trump himself is allegedly a very paranoid man
>gets into twitter wars with foreign dictators
>possible conspiracies abound involving Russian interference
>so many ridiculous stories and allegations leveled at Trump that nobody knows what is true and what isn't
>intelligence specialist who leaked classified information detailing Russian interference is actually named "Reality Winner"
Regardless of what you think of the administration or the state of the country, you have to admit it sounds pretty Pynchonian.
Just finished Inherent Vice. My first Pynchon book and it was really fucking good.
>intelligence specialist who leaked classified information detailing Russian interference is actually named "Reality Winner"
cracked up, that is exactly the kind of name he would do
Is this your attempt to make us speculate whether you're actually Tommy P himself, OP? I really hope you're not because that would be sad.
Cormac McCarthy is greater than both of them
If someone actually has a fucking name like that and also turns out to be a leaky spy, reality has lost it's tracks a long time ago.
I have no other alternatives, the CIA must be microdosing the population with acid and setting this whole show up.
I want to see him do a comedy about two incompetent cult members working behind the scenes of the US government.
>intelligence specialist who leaked classified information detailing Russian interference is actually named "Reality Winner"
I had already forgotten about this. Time seems to have been moving faster since 2016. There's so much going on.
Hey friends, it's me. user is correct in his estimate. If everything keeps on as it has been, my next novel should be out around two years from now. But then again, there are always hang-ups. Glad to see your enthusiasm. Hope it doesn't disappoint!
Does anyone have those pics of actual pynchon on Veeky Forums?
Thanks, Tom. How's health?
It's pretty much a boiler plate Pynchon detective story until 11 September, then you get some of the good ol' transcendent Pynch prose. Like many have said before, it's on par with Vineland and Inherent Vice: a fun romp that will get your almonds activated once or twice, and it won't take you 6 months to finish.
Hello
I can't believe this is real!
Thank you for stopping by, sir. I wish you good health and good luck in all your endeavors.
lol
>No doubt it's coming, alright
r-really user? ples tel me you're not gibing false hoppes my heart can't take one moar shock like this
hi guys its me
It's coming, alright, and you had better be ready for it -- else it'll take you in ways you've never quite imagined possible.
hi pynch
hows things
hmm yes a space opera from Psychton, now that would be something else, woudn't it. And being near dementia-age, he'd be allowed to do something like this, even by the high priests of cuture like the, ahem, New York Times.
Shill your shit somewhere else
hey pynch......
hey what's that
New Yorker here, Mr. Pynchon and I reside in the same Upper West Side apartment together, and I often chat with him while he smokes his Reds and feeds the pigeons lingering across the street before Central Park. You may recall my story: Mr. Pynchon openly mocked me for reading Goethe, and gave a hearty laugh at my collection of James Michener titles yukyukyuk.
Anyhow, the ol’ chap still writes by hand, he says, but his hands have grown weak and tired. Nonetheless, he’s working on something. All he told me, one day in the foyer of our lovely Upper West Side luxury apartment complex, was that it has to do with Nintendo 64 and the nuclear bomb.
Will you ask him something for me next time you see him? Will you ask him if the Katje and Pirate moment was cut from the same cloth that my visions of "Alexander Falling From Babel" was? Whether or not that was a divinely inspired moment that the rest of the work encapsulated?
Sometimes I worry he's already dead and we just haven't heard yet
Pls tell me he has more to give anons
1/10 poor Pynchon impression