Really loved this cover. I thought it's very expressive, imposing and captures the mood, spirit and vibe of the book better than the US edition.

I've got the UK edition and on page 213 it says:

"Mind if I, uh -" Frenesi reaching and turning off the set.

"Your mathematician doesn't go in for that sort thing?"

Frenesi put her ears back, and white triangles appeared at the corners of her eyeballs.

What does he mean by the bolded portion? I feel dumb :( Any help is appreciated!

Hi Guys I'm working on a translation of "Slow Learner" for fun, and was just wondering if any of you maybe had an idea of what Pynchon could mean by "time inevitability" in the introduction?

The full quote is: I suspect one of the reasons that fantasy and science fiction appeal so much to younger readers is that, when the space and time have been altered to allow characters to travel easily anywhere through the continuum and thus escape physical dangers and timepiece inevitabilities, mortality is so seldom an issue.

I am commencing my second read of Mason & Dixon and yes I timed it for the holidays. The first time I read it is like any first time with one of the big Pynchon’s: a whirlwind. I occasionally consulted the Pynchonwiki annotations but not much else besides a great bbc “in our time”podcast on coffee houses which fit well! Wondering what else you all recommend to better understand the era.

Hi, on page 93, Webb pulls out a union card with the quote, “labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.” Does anyone know if this union card in fact exists / has any pictures of it ?

Hi Great People and Thomas Pynchon fans and super fans,

I was attempting to read Against the Day and there was a part in the beginning when they were talking about the KKK and I got really scared. As a black man in America, this was triggering for me so I really need to know- is all of Pynchon's work racially inclined or is this just one aspect of his work? I know he has another book, I think it's called Gravity's Rainbow, where the main character's name is Tyrone which makes me feel a lot more comfortable (because someone named Tyrone just has to be black). Thanks for all of your responses in advance, I'm just a black man trying to read this book and damn if i didn't get frightened as shit.

Edit: The down voting of this post in this community has me close to tears. I cannot believe that YOU PEOPLE have the nerve to suggest this is a "troll post". I come to you in earnest, as a black man in American tryna read some white man's literature and for you to treat me this way just makes me feel like my ancestors are rolling over in their graves. Oh wait, they didn't even have graves bc they were SLAVES for y'all. Un-freakin-belivable! I came on reddit to have heartfelt discussions with fellow literature lovers (NOT to look at porn) and this is the thanks I get!! I'll see myself to the door, don't you worry your lil Yakub created heads. Have a nice evenin'! I will be needing a heartfelt apology and a french kiss from the mods of this sub as restitution!!!!!!

Thanks

Howdy Weirdos,

It's Wednesday once more, and if you don't know what the means, I'll let you in on a little secret: another thread of Casual Discussion!

This is our weekly thread dedicated to discussing whatever we want to outside the realm of Thomas Pynchon and tangentially-related subjects.

Every week, you're free to utilize this thread the way you might an "unpopular opinions" or "ask reddit"-type forum. Talk about whatever you like.

Feel free to share anything you want (within the r/ThomasPynchon rules and Reddit TOS) with us, every Wednesday.

Happy Reading and Chatting,

- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team

With the latest fad of celebrity lookalike contests how long until someone throws one for Thomas Pynchon?

it’s a quote, i want to say it’s from gravity’s rainbow but im not sure, that essentially expresses how there’s this deep desire to believe that secret cabals and beaurocrats control everything perfectly, but that it is way more chaos and up to chance than anyone would be comfortable with

Why?

Today I learned that someone had named their cat Lazlo and it made me happy enough to want to share the random joy here.

https://youtube.com/shorts/g4kDRco0DGM

Happy Holidays

I am planning on starting/doing my first read through of Gravitys Rainbow in the new year, kicking off in Jan. Anyone fancy joining me and chatting about it as we go?

My long term purpose is for in-depth analysis but initially, on the first read-through, I just want to see if there are others out there planning on tackling this, and if anyone fancy doing it together for a bit of support. Plus it would be great to be able to talk about things as and when they come up.

Howdy Weirdos,

It's Sunday again, and I assume you know what the means? Another thread of "What Are You Into This Week"?

Our weekly thread dedicated to discussing what we've been reading, watching, listening to, and playing the past week.

Have you:

• Been reading a good book? A few good books?
• Did you watch an exceptional stage production?
• Listen to an amazing new album or song or band? Discovered an amazing old album/song/band?
• Watch a mind-blowing film or tv show?
• Immerse yourself in an incredible video game? Board game? RPG?

We want to hear about it, every Sunday.

Please, tell us all about it. Recommend and suggest what you've been reading/watching/playing/listening to. Talk to others about what they've been into.

Tell us:

What Are You Into This Week?

​

​

- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team

So, there's this song in V that has caught my attention (Chapter X, Part III).

It looks to me like in this part Charisma constructs an algebraic formula:

Let P equal me,

With my heart in command;

Let Q equal you

With Tractatus in hand;

And R could stand for a lifetime of love,

Filled with music to fondle and purr to.

We’ll define love as anything lovely you’d care to infer to.

On the right, put that bright,

Hypothetical case;

On the left, our uncleft,

Parenthetical chase.

And that horseshoe there in the middle

Could be lucky; we’ve nothing to lose,

If in these parentheses

We just mind our little P’s

And Q’s.

If we try to turn this into a boolean algebra we might get:
(P⋀Q)=R

⋀ being the horseshoe and a logical "AND" symbol.

Sounds like very fancy way of saying ME+YOU=LOVE.

I like how this book makes you think yourself smart when you uncover something like this, even though at the same time it kind of makes of fun of people searching for hidden truths behind every fact.

Apparently Teddy Roosevelt was her great-grandfather. I feel like this may have been mentioned somewhere before, but damn, it threw me for a loop.

Then again, Pynchon also has an interesting lineage, so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.

I’ve been on my fifth read of GR and have just sort of realized how much of Captain Blicero’s motives and actions are framed through a sense of guilt, self-loathing, and exhaustion (even though he still remains delightfully sadistic and abhorrent) which adds a great deal of sympathy and/or understanding to his character. It reads to me that he almost wants to transcend humanity through death and eroticism, he seems to have an extremely deep-seated death drive that had a few glimpses in his appearance in V. that over the years solidified, intensified, and combined with his increasing guilt/self-loathing/exhaustion/etc. into where he is in GR.

I’m curious to hear your guys’ thoughts and ideas on this since I feel like I rarely see people talk about the pathos and the reasons one of the greatest literary antagonists of all time (imo) does what he does rather than WHAT it is he does.

I’m thinking of the Golden Fang, and the syndicate set up by dentists for tax purposes this afternoon, vis a vis, Brian Thompson, and UHC. 

If you were to cross the Golden Fang with the kind of sleek, corporate dystopia that United Health Care has become under Brian Thompson’s watch, you might end up with something like ‘The Golden Scalpel’ a shadowy syndicate of insurance executives, secretly scheming to screw you through denied coverage or malicious bureaucracy which will hurt you medically or financially- targeting your sanity either way.  

In this world, the syndicate cares about predetermining how long your surgery will take before you even get a scalpel to the skin. Their trick? They’ll tell you how long your heart surgery should last, as if it’s a clock in and clock out kind of job. If you happen to be a patient with an actual human body, well, tough luck. If your surgeon is too quick or too slow? You’re paying the price.

Sure, anaesthesia is expensive- they've decided that today. So now, they'll predict exactly how much you’ll need. Not based on your weight, medical history, or the depth of your trauma, but on how much they can charge for a round of anaesthesia that covers a 20-minute procedure, even if your surgeon’s running a bit over. They’ll double-dip, triple-dip, charge you for the last five minutes of surgery like it’s premium time. But don’t worry- your insurance premiums still somehow rise whilst the insurance company keeps getting fatter and fatter. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder if United Health could just give you a bucket of aspirin, and call it ‘preventative care.’

The ‘Golden Fang’ of healthcare has no incentive to heal, only to prescribe and profit. They have a monopoly on the nation's very vitals. Like the ‘Golden Fang’ in IV, they’ve become tax-exempt, profit-maximising middlemen: keep the dental office or the ER just barely within sight, but don’t actually do much except set arbitrary timers on procedures and send AI robots to reject claims like a rogue clockwork Orange. Their motto: ‘Pay for health and you'll never get well, just well processed.’ 

It's like they’ve designed a plan where the American public's health isn't about treatment, it's about statistical optimisation. AI systems now trawl through claims, and are programmed to tell you that your cancer treatment surgery took too long, based on a predetermined algorithm that said ‘two hours max.’ Anything past that? Well, it’s all out of pocket. And don’t get me started on how the algorithm somehow always says ‘denied’ when you have after care complications and need treatment. ‘Sorry, it’s just not cost-effective’- except it’s the insurance company and not you getting the payout.

The Golden Fang is still alive, only it now wears a business suit and asks you for your social security number before charging you 5,000 for ‘analysis’ of your claim denial. Brian Thompson himself would probably show up in a tailor made suit, saying something like: ‘We’ve revolutionised healthcare; no need for anaesthesia! Just trust our AI to predict how long your surgery will take and everything will be fine.’ Meanwhile, the entire country, under the shimmering glass skyscrapers of United Health, grinds its teeth in painful recognition that the real Inherent Vice isn’t in the lawless, marijuana drenched streets of LA, but in the labyrinthine, insurance fuelled corridors where the sick are the prey, and the healthy are just the future policyholders.

In the end, it’s all the same racket: A billion dollar syndicate that keeps squeezing more out of you, with their golden hands of fraud wrapped tight around your neck. Only in this version, instead of Hope Harlingen lying in the dentist chair, you’re lying on the operating table with your heart pre-sliced by the numbers- because even your heart now has a cost per minute. And you, my friend, are just another insurance claim number caught in the machinery.

It’s a golden fang world, and we’re just living in it. 

If the Day here represents ‘light’ as an Apollinian, meaning-making force at its most oppressive and totalizing, then what about Skip, the ball lightning boy that Merle befriends during a stint as a lightning rod salesman? He’s a light of his own, a small one that Merle is at first trying to eradicate until he actually meets Skip, hiding in a barn like a refugee from justice (or, what is usually meant by that word, ‘authority’), and befriends him. Merle can’t bring himself to hawk the rods after he meets Skip.

Skip reminds me of Byron the Lightbulb in GR, though I’ll have to reread that passage since it’s been a while. To Merle, he seems friendly, though he’s clearly dangerous. In that sense, and in the fact that he’s hiding out in a barn from those who would destroy him, and that he’s a symbol of untamed energy, he’s very much like one of the anarchist figures in the novel. In similar fashion, those anarchists represent their own light, a light seeking to escape the totalizing force of the light of day.

The last time around, the passage seemed quirky, strange. Thinking about it this way, though, it’s fraught with meaning.

My first Pynchon book - I'm only around 60 pages in, and I feel like it's revealed something about the world that I was never fully aware of before. The way we feel when we encounter on the daily so many different frames of mind, objects and people, in increasingly scattered but also interconnected ways. The almost complete lack of mediation between different things in our lives. Everything feels like nonsense but can also be enormously consequential. He's describing modern life in a way that I've never fully been able to put a finger on. I'm sure others have written a lot more insightfully on this – I'd love to read or hear some commentary along these lines.