Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
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
A fine example of a successful marriage between the popular and intellectual, between fiction and science.. gloriously, demandingly, daringly, Pynchon has rediscovered vulgarity and continues to prove the novel has never been more vibrant, more various or better able to represent our complex world. Give this book your time - you'll agree its worth it -- Michael Moorcock * Daily Telegraph *
The greatest, wildest author of his generation -- Ian Rankin * Guardian *
Against the Day is a rollercoaster ride that soars, plummets and often loops the loop.... A fantastic chronicle of how the world came into being... there is a beautifully humane, compassionate energy arcing through the book...Pynchon is the only living American author who unreservedly deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *
It is a serious book and the finest thing Pynchon has done since Gravity's Rainbow. It should be acknowledged, nonetheless that Against The Day is immensely funny, an intricate, wheezing shaggy dog joke holds you in its grip for a thousand pages. Quite a feat -- Tom Adair * Scotsman *
It is brilliant...There's a wonderful gathering tenderness - and Pynchon writes some of the most beautiful sentences you are ever likely to come across * Spectator *
The greatest, wildest author of his generation -- Ian Rankin * Guardian *
Against the Day is a rollercoaster ride that soars, plummets and often loops the loop.... A fantastic chronicle of how the world came into being... there is a beautifully humane, compassionate energy arcing through the book...Pynchon is the only living American author who unreservedly deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *
It is a serious book and the finest thing Pynchon has done since Gravity's Rainbow. It should be acknowledged, nonetheless that Against The Day is immensely funny, an intricate, wheezing shaggy dog joke holds you in its grip for a thousand pages. Quite a feat -- Tom Adair * Scotsman *
It is brilliant...There's a wonderful gathering tenderness - and Pynchon writes some of the most beautiful sentences you are ever likely to come across * Spectator *
Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner and a collection of short stories, Vineland, Mason and Dixon. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780099512332 |
| ISBN 10 | 0099512335 |
| Title | Against the Day |
| Author | Thomas Pynchon |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2007-11-01 |
| Number of pages | 1232 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |