Pynchon Criticism

“What’s his message?” they’d interrogate anxiously. “What does he want?”

Pynchon Criticism

This section collects Pynchon-related criticism, including academic books, reader’s guides, and essay collections. A “Quick Reference Card” shows all the titles included, on under which section they are found. Note that a few books of “contextual criticism” appear in multiple sections.
General Criticism 1 — Focusing on Pynchon’s broader oeuvre, these works were published from 1974–1999.
General Criticism 2 — Focusing on Pynchon’s broader oeuvre, these works were published from 2000 onwards.
V. — Works specifically about V.
The Crying of Lot 49 — Works specifically about The Crying of Lot 49.
Gravity’s Rainbow — Works specifically about Gravity’s Rainbow.
Mason & Dixon — Works specifically about Mason & Dixon.
Against the Day — Works specifically about Against the Day.
Shorter Works — Works about Vineland, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge.
Contextual Criticism — These works critique Pynchon in a wider context that includes other writers, movements, or thematic subjects.
Critical Bibliography — Dr Larry Daw’s bibliography of selected Pynchon criticism 1972–2003, including books, journals and newspapers.

Quick Reference Card:

General Criticism 1: 1974–1999

Slade, Joseph W. Writers of the 70’s: Thomas Pynchon
Levine, George & David Leverenz. Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon
Plater, William M. The Grim Phoenix: Reconstructing Thomas Pynchon
Mendelson, Edward. Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays
Cowart, David. Thomas Pynchon’s Art of Illusion
Mackey, Douglas A. The Rainbow Quest of Thomas Pynchon
Stark, John O. Pynchon’s Fictions: Thomas Pynchon and the Literature of Information
Schaub, Thomas. Pynchon: The Voice of Ambiguity
Pearce, Richard. Critical Essays on Thomas Pynchon
Tanner, Tony. Thomas Pynchon (Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction)
Cooper, Peter. Signs and Symptoms: Thomas Pynchon and the Contemporary World
Hite, Molly. Ideas of Order in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon
Newman, Robert. Understanding Thomas Pynchon
Seed, David. Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon
Eddins, Dwight. Gnostic Pynchon
Mead, Clifford. Thomas Pynchon: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials
Price, Victoria. Christian Allusions in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon
Dugdale, John. Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables of Power
Kharpertian, Theodore D. A Hand to Turn the Time: The Menippean Satires of Thomas Pynchon
McHoul, Alec & David Wills. Writing Pynchon: Strategies in Fictional Analysis
Madsen, Deborah L. Postmodernist Allegories of Thomas Pynchon
Chambers, Judith. Thomas Pynchon (Twayne’s United States Authors Series)
Berressem, Hanjo. Pynchon’s Poetics: Interfacing Theory and Text

General Criticism 2: 2000–Present

Brownlie, Alan. W. Thomas Pynchon’s Narratives: Subjectivity and Problems of Knowing
Mattessich, Stefan. Lines of Flight: Discursive Time and Countercultural Desire in the Work of Thomas Pynchon
Bloom, Harold. Thomas Pynchon (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views)
Abbas, Niran. Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the Margins
Copestake, Ian D. American Postmodernity: Essays On the Recent Fiction of Thomas Pynchon
Smith, Shawn. Pynchon and History: Metahistorical Rhetoric and Postmodern Narrative Form in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon
Hurley, Patrick. Pynchon Character Names: A Dictionary
Cowart, David. Thomas Pynchon and the Dark Passages of History
Dalsgaard, Inger; Luc Herman, & Brian McHale. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon
de Bourcier, Simon. Pynchon and Relativity: Narrative Time in Thomas Pynchon’s Later Novels
Freer, Joanna. Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture
McClintock, Scott & John Miller. Pynchon’s California
Eve, Martin Paul. Pynchon and Philosophy
Carswell, Sean. Occupy Pynchon: Politics after Gravity’s Rainbow
Chetwynd, Ali; Joanna Freer & Georgios Maragos. Thomas Pynchon, Sex, and Gender
Misztal, Arkadiusz. Time and Vision Machines in Thomas Pynchon’s Novels
Rolls, Albert. Thomas Pynchon: Demon In the Text
Freer, Joanna. New Pynchon Studies
Hänggi, Christian. Pynchon’s Sound of Music
Ketzan, Eric. Thomas Pynchon and the Digital Humanities: Computational Approaches to Style

V.

Grant, J. Kerry. A Companion to V.
BookRags. Summary and Study Guide: V. by Thomas Pynchon
Bandini, Eric. V. The Myth in Thomas Pynchon

The Crying of Lot 49

Colvile, Georgiana M.M. Beyond and Beneath the Mantle: On Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49
O’Donnell, Patrick. New Essays on The Crying of Lot 49
Grant, J. Kerry. A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49
Schaub, Thomas. Approaches to Teaching Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Other Works
Klose, Yvonne. “How had it ever happened here?”: A Constructivist Reading of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and its Role in the Pynchon Canon
Kohn, Robert E. New Close Readings of The Crying of Lot 49

Gravity’s Rainbow

Siegel, Mark Richard. Pynchon: Creative Paranoia in Gravity’s Rainbow
Fowler, Douglas. A Reader’s Guide to Gravity’s Rainbow
Bloom, Harold. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (Modern Critical Interpretations)
Hohmann, Charles. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow: A Study of Its Conceptual Structure and of Rilke’s Influence
Hume, Kit. Pynchon’s Mythography: An Approach to Gravity’s Rainbow
Moore, Thomas. The Style of Connectedness: Gravity’s Rainbow and Thomas Pynchon
Carter, Dale. The Final Frontier: The Rise and Fall of the American Rocket State
Weisenburger, Steven C. A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel
Hohmann, Charles. Angel and Rocket: Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and the Duino Elegies
Weisenburger, Steven C. & Luc Herman A Gravity’s Rainbow, Domination, and Freedom
Ercolino, Stefano. The Maximalist Novel: From Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow to Roberto Bolano’s 2666
Crayola, Robert. The Gravity’s Rainbow Handbook: A Key to the Thomas Pynchon Novel

Mason & Dixon

Horvath, Brooke & Irving Malin. Pynchon and Mason & Dixon
Clerc, Charles. Mason & Dixon & Pynchon
Sigvardson, Joakim. Immanence & Transcendence in Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon: A Phenomenological Study
Hinds, Elizabeth Jane Wall. The Multiple Worlds of Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon

Against the Day

Severs, Jeffrey & Christopher Leise. Pynchon’s Against the Day: A Corrupted Pilgrim’s Guide
Mogultay, Utku. The Ruins of Urban Modernity: Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day
Sellami, Samir. Hyperbolic Realism: A Wild Reading of Pynchon’s and Bolaño’s Late Maximalist Fiction

Shorter Works

Greene, Geoffrey. The Vineland Papers
Coviello, Peter. Vineland Reread
Tyree, J.M. The Counterforce: Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice

Contextual Criticism

Hopkiss, Robert A. American Absurd: Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Barth
Clark, Beverly Lyon. Reflections of Fantasy: The Mirror-Worlds of Carroll, Nabokov, and Pynchon
Stonehill, Brian. The Self-Conscious Novel: Artifice in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon
Hurm, Gerd. Fragmented Urban Images: The American City in Modern Fiction from Stephen Crane to Thomas Pynchon
Maltby, Paul. Dissident Postmodernists: Barthelme, Coover, Pynchon
Tabbi, Joseph. Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk
Patell, Cyrus R.K. Negative Liberties: Morrison, Pynchon, and the Problem of Liberal Ideology
Curtin, Maureen F. Out of Touch: Skin Tropes and Identities in Woolf, Ellison, Pynchon, and Acker
Orbán, Katalin. Ethical Diversions: The Post-Holocaust Narratives of Pynchon, Abish, DeLillo, and Spiegelman
Gourley, James. Terrorism and Temporality in the Works of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo
Ercolino, Stefano. The Maximalist Novel: From Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow to Roberto Bolano’s 2666
Letzler, David. The Cruft of Fiction: Mega-Novels and the Science of Paying Attention
Haines, Christian. A Desire Called America: Biopolitics, Utopia, and the Literary Commons
Bloom, Harold. The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon
Sellami, Samir. Hyperbolic Realism: A Wild Reading of Pynchon’s and Bolaño’s Late Maximalist Fiction
Author: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 12 December 2021

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