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Summary
Summary
Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the 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 time 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.
The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.
As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them. Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.
Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.
- Thomas Pynchon
Summary
Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War One, 'Against the Day' moves from the labour troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.
Summary
"[Pynchon's] funniest and arguably his most accessible novel." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Raunchy, funny, digressive, brilliant." -- USA Today
"Rich and sweeping, wild and thrilling." -- The Boston Globe
Spanning the era between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, and constantly moving between locations across the globe (and to a few places not strictly speaking on the map at all), Against the Day unfolds with a phantasmagoria of characters that includes anarchists, balloonists, drug enthusiasts, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, spies, and hired guns. As an era of uncertainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.
Author Notes
Thomas Pynchon was born in Glen Cove, New York on May 8, 1937. In 1959 he graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell, where he had taken Vladimir Nabokov's famous course in modern literature after studying engineering physics and serving in the U.S. Navy for two years. He worked as a technical writer at Boeing for two and a half years.
Pynchon won the Faulkner First Novel Award for V. in 1963, and in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), again his symbolism and commentary on the United States and human isolation have been praised as intricate and masterly, though some reviewers found it to be maddeningly dense. With this book Pynchon won the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Gravity's Rainbow, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1974, is in part a fictional elegy and meditation on death and an encyclopedic work that jumps through time. Pynchon has also written numerous essays, reviews, and introductions, plus the fictional works Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice. His title Bleeding Edge made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013.
He is famous for his reclusive nature, although he has made several animated appearances on The Simpsons television series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Thomas Pynchon was born in Glen Cove, New York on May 8, 1937. In 1959 he graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell, where he had taken Vladimir Nabokov's famous course in modern literature after studying engineering physics and serving in the U.S. Navy for two years. He worked as a technical writer at Boeing for two and a half years.
Pynchon won the Faulkner First Novel Award for V. in 1963, and in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), again his symbolism and commentary on the United States and human isolation have been praised as intricate and masterly, though some reviewers found it to be maddeningly dense. With this book Pynchon won the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Gravity's Rainbow, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1974, is in part a fictional elegy and meditation on death and an encyclopedic work that jumps through time. Pynchon has also written numerous essays, reviews, and introductions, plus the fictional works Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice. His title Bleeding Edge made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013.
He is famous for his reclusive nature, although he has made several animated appearances on The Simpsons television series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Thomas Pynchon was born in Glen Cove, New York on May 8, 1937. In 1959 he graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell, where he had taken Vladimir Nabokov's famous course in modern literature after studying engineering physics and serving in the U.S. Navy for two years. He worked as a technical writer at Boeing for two and a half years.
Pynchon won the Faulkner First Novel Award for V. in 1963, and in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), again his symbolism and commentary on the United States and human isolation have been praised as intricate and masterly, though some reviewers found it to be maddeningly dense. With this book Pynchon won the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Gravity's Rainbow, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1974, is in part a fictional elegy and meditation on death and an encyclopedic work that jumps through time. Pynchon has also written numerous essays, reviews, and introductions, plus the fictional works Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice. His title Bleeding Edge made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013.
He is famous for his reclusive nature, although he has made several animated appearances on The Simpsons television series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (9)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Looking to add 42 CDs to your collection in one fell swoop? Possessed of 54 hours of free time that desperately need to be filled? Look no further than this audiobook of Pynchon's latest literary behemoth, a product so ridiculously outsized it deserves a Pynchon book of its own to celebrate it. Hill is to be commended for making his way through the 1,100 pages of Pynchon's novel, traipsing all the way from the union-busting American West of the 1880s to the WWI-era Balkans, shifting accents and deliveries with aplomb along the way. While it is hard to imagine anyone mustering the energy to listen to all of Pynchon's admittedly brilliant late career masterpiece, Hill admirably meets the challenge, although he occasionally makes the mistake of emphasizing the book's comedy over its deep moral and intellectual seriousness. At 54.5 hours long, though, a little extra comedy is probably a necessary accoutrement. Simultaneous release with the Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 30). (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Nearly a decade after Mason & Dixon (1997), Pynchon delivers a novel that matches his most influential work, Gravity's Rainbow (1973), in complexity, humor, and insight, and surpasses it in emotional valence. Approaching 70 and as famous for his avoidance of the public eye as for his Niagaras of prose, Pynchon remains profoundly fascinated by light, time, and technology. The improbable action begins onboard a hydrogen skyship, the Inconvenience, manned by the Chums of Chance, a fabled do-gooder aeronautics club on its way to Chicago for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Aside from some Jules Verne-like voyages beneath the earth's surface, the bickering Chums provide an aerial view of the carnivalesque proceedings as this many-voiced saga modulates in tone from cliffhanger jocularity to metaphysical speculation, lyricism, and devilish satire. As Pynchon whirls his way through such milestones as the invention of dynamite, harnessing of electricity, evolution of photography and movies, development of diabolical weapons, and the bloody turmoil in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire leading up to World War I, his motley characters circle the globe on quests for enlightenment, profit, revenge, romance, and sanctuary. Cartoonish figures vamp and menace, but Pynchon has also created genuinely dimensional and affecting characters, including marvelously tough and witty women, from saloon girls to a magician's assistant, a mathematician, and an anthropologist. By orchestrating fantastic, dramatic, and all-too-real goings-on in the Wild West, the Bowery, London, Gottingen, Venice, Mexico, Bukhara, Albania, and Tuva, Pynchon illuminates the human endeavor in all its longing, violence, hubris, and grace. A capacious, gritty, and tender epic. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Pynchon (Mason & Dixon) has once again produced a work of note. His portrait of a sizable number of characters living in the volatile period from 1893 to post-World War I is equally epic and surreal (and sometimes a bit confusing). It is multilayered and filled with foreshadowing and numerous interesting subplots. Strangely, it is at the same time sadly realistic and idealistic, intellectual and humorous (mostly droll), fictitious and historical. In other words, this is pure Pynchon as he illustrates the arc of the human spirit. The performance of reader Dick Hill is nothing short of masterly; his ability to convey emotion and believable accents over so lengthy and complex a work and yet hold the listener's interest is remarkable. Recommended for those with the patience to stick with the novel to the end, though often this may seem like a challenge.-Scott R. DiMarco, Mansfield Univ. of Pennsylvania (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Looking to add 42 CDs to your collection in one fell swoop? Possessed of 54 hours of free time that desperately need to be filled? Look no further than this audiobook of Pynchon's latest literary behemoth, a product so ridiculously outsized it deserves a Pynchon book of its own to celebrate it. Hill is to be commended for making his way through the 1,100 pages of Pynchon's novel, traipsing all the way from the union-busting American West of the 1880s to the WWI-era Balkans, shifting accents and deliveries with aplomb along the way. While it is hard to imagine anyone mustering the energy to listen to all of Pynchon's admittedly brilliant late career masterpiece, Hill admirably meets the challenge, although he occasionally makes the mistake of emphasizing the book's comedy over its deep moral and intellectual seriousness. At 54.5 hours long, though, a little extra comedy is probably a necessary accoutrement. Simultaneous release with the Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 30). (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Nearly a decade after Mason & Dixon (1997), Pynchon delivers a novel that matches his most influential work, Gravity's Rainbow (1973), in complexity, humor, and insight, and surpasses it in emotional valence. Approaching 70 and as famous for his avoidance of the public eye as for his Niagaras of prose, Pynchon remains profoundly fascinated by light, time, and technology. The improbable action begins onboard a hydrogen skyship, the Inconvenience, manned by the Chums of Chance, a fabled do-gooder aeronautics club on its way to Chicago for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Aside from some Jules Verne-like voyages beneath the earth's surface, the bickering Chums provide an aerial view of the carnivalesque proceedings as this many-voiced saga modulates in tone from cliffhanger jocularity to metaphysical speculation, lyricism, and devilish satire. As Pynchon whirls his way through such milestones as the invention of dynamite, harnessing of electricity, evolution of photography and movies, development of diabolical weapons, and the bloody turmoil in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire leading up to World War I, his motley characters circle the globe on quests for enlightenment, profit, revenge, romance, and sanctuary. Cartoonish figures vamp and menace, but Pynchon has also created genuinely dimensional and affecting characters, including marvelously tough and witty women, from saloon girls to a magician's assistant, a mathematician, and an anthropologist. By orchestrating fantastic, dramatic, and all-too-real goings-on in the Wild West, the Bowery, London, Gottingen, Venice, Mexico, Bukhara, Albania, and Tuva, Pynchon illuminates the human endeavor in all its longing, violence, hubris, and grace. A capacious, gritty, and tender epic. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Pynchon (Mason & Dixon) has once again produced a work of note. His portrait of a sizable number of characters living in the volatile period from 1893 to post-World War I is equally epic and surreal (and sometimes a bit confusing). It is multilayered and filled with foreshadowing and numerous interesting subplots. Strangely, it is at the same time sadly realistic and idealistic, intellectual and humorous (mostly droll), fictitious and historical. In other words, this is pure Pynchon as he illustrates the arc of the human spirit. The performance of reader Dick Hill is nothing short of masterly; his ability to convey emotion and believable accents over so lengthy and complex a work and yet hold the listener's interest is remarkable. Recommended for those with the patience to stick with the novel to the end, though often this may seem like a challenge.-Scott R. DiMarco, Mansfield Univ. of Pennsylvania (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Looking to add 42 CDs to your collection in one fell swoop? Possessed of 54 hours of free time that desperately need to be filled? Look no further than this audiobook of Pynchon's latest literary behemoth, a product so ridiculously outsized it deserves a Pynchon book of its own to celebrate it. Hill is to be commended for making his way through the 1,100 pages of Pynchon's novel, traipsing all the way from the union-busting American West of the 1880s to the WWI-era Balkans, shifting accents and deliveries with aplomb along the way. While it is hard to imagine anyone mustering the energy to listen to all of Pynchon's admittedly brilliant late career masterpiece, Hill admirably meets the challenge, although he occasionally makes the mistake of emphasizing the book's comedy over its deep moral and intellectual seriousness. At 54.5 hours long, though, a little extra comedy is probably a necessary accoutrement. Simultaneous release with the Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 30). (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Nearly a decade after Mason & Dixon (1997), Pynchon delivers a novel that matches his most influential work, Gravity's Rainbow (1973), in complexity, humor, and insight, and surpasses it in emotional valence. Approaching 70 and as famous for his avoidance of the public eye as for his Niagaras of prose, Pynchon remains profoundly fascinated by light, time, and technology. The improbable action begins onboard a hydrogen skyship, the Inconvenience, manned by the Chums of Chance, a fabled do-gooder aeronautics club on its way to Chicago for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Aside from some Jules Verne-like voyages beneath the earth's surface, the bickering Chums provide an aerial view of the carnivalesque proceedings as this many-voiced saga modulates in tone from cliffhanger jocularity to metaphysical speculation, lyricism, and devilish satire. As Pynchon whirls his way through such milestones as the invention of dynamite, harnessing of electricity, evolution of photography and movies, development of diabolical weapons, and the bloody turmoil in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire leading up to World War I, his motley characters circle the globe on quests for enlightenment, profit, revenge, romance, and sanctuary. Cartoonish figures vamp and menace, but Pynchon has also created genuinely dimensional and affecting characters, including marvelously tough and witty women, from saloon girls to a magician's assistant, a mathematician, and an anthropologist. By orchestrating fantastic, dramatic, and all-too-real goings-on in the Wild West, the Bowery, London, Gottingen, Venice, Mexico, Bukhara, Albania, and Tuva, Pynchon illuminates the human endeavor in all its longing, violence, hubris, and grace. A capacious, gritty, and tender epic. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Pynchon (Mason & Dixon) has once again produced a work of note. His portrait of a sizable number of characters living in the volatile period from 1893 to post-World War I is equally epic and surreal (and sometimes a bit confusing). It is multilayered and filled with foreshadowing and numerous interesting subplots. Strangely, it is at the same time sadly realistic and idealistic, intellectual and humorous (mostly droll), fictitious and historical. In other words, this is pure Pynchon as he illustrates the arc of the human spirit. The performance of reader Dick Hill is nothing short of masterly; his ability to convey emotion and believable accents over so lengthy and complex a work and yet hold the listener's interest is remarkable. Recommended for those with the patience to stick with the novel to the end, though often this may seem like a challenge.-Scott R. DiMarco, Mansfield Univ. of Pennsylvania (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.