Thomas Pynchon and the Dark Passages of History by David Cowart

by David Cowart

Thomas Pynchon helped pioneer the postmodern aesthetic. His formidable body of work challenges readers to think and perceive in ways that anticipate—with humor, insight, and cogency—much that has emerged in the field of literary theory over the past few decades. For David Cowart, Pynchon’s most profound teachings are about history—history as myth, as rhetorical construct, as false consciousness, as prologue, as mirror, and as seedbed of national and literary identities.

In one encyclopedic novel after another, Pynchon has reconceptualized historical periods that he sees as culturally definitive. Examining Pynchon’s entire body of work, Cowart offers an engaging, metahistorical reading of V.; an exhaustive analysis of the influence of German culture in Pynchon’s early work, with particular emphasis on Gravity’s Rainbow; and a critical spectroscopy of those dark stars, Mason & Dixon and Against the Day. He defends the California fictions The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, and Inherent Vice as roman fleuve chronicling the decade in which the American tapestry began to unravel. Cowart ends his study by considering Pynchon’s place in literary history.

Cowart argues that Pynchon has always understood the facticity of historical narrative and the historicity of storytelling—not to mention the relations of both story and history to myth. Thomas Pynchon and the Dark Passages of History offers a deft analysis of the problems of history as engaged by our greatest living novelist and argues for the continuity of Pynchon’s historical vision.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Literary Criticism, Criticism

Hardcover

First published January 15, 2012

Reviews

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't believe Pynchon's a strain all his own, here's the place to start: erudite, non-obscurist, and totally awake to the places Pynchon was taking us — "One fiction complements its fellows, and all coalesce as a post-Faulknerian exercise: a Yoknapatawpha of America and Western civilization" — Cowart doesn't miss much, a dry understatement in the assessment of Pynchon's canon, and makes it approachable by the lay-or-intimidated reader like nothing since Andreas Killen's closure to his 1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America. You'll be intrigued, you'll be buttressed, you'll be better off prepared to know what Literature, and Pynchon's Literature, can and has been doing for the America we've been living in all along: Why Not Start Here?

[Маx Nestelieiev · Rating 5 out of 5]

прекрасна літературознавча розвідка: написано легко, цікаво, але водночас науково і доказово. Коварт чудово вміє аналізувати великі тексти, не зловживаючи цитатами, однак вписуючи їх у ширші культурні контексти. гарно, що він виділив основні теми й лейтмотиви в усій прозі Пінчона, хоча часом він захоплюється і повторює те саме двічі, а то й тричі.

[Tatiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent accompaniment to reading Pinchon, tracing the development of his ideas about history and regress (in contrast to progress) through his books. The German angle was especially surprising, and apt.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Томас Пинчон и темные норы истории" написана внятно и вполне увлекательно для суховатого по большей части пинчоноведения, а под конец - особенно в том, что касается AtD, - и до того страстно, что начинаешь любить заодно и автора. хорошее популярное и доступное чтение для тех, кто уже прочел всего ТРП

[Gage Hoefer · Rating 3 out of 5]

More accessible than other scholarly literature I've read about Pynchon, but it comes with its downsides. I think the essays on "Against the Day", "V.", and the influence of German culture in Pynchon's first few novels are good, while the essays on "Mason & Dixon" and the 60's were fine. The writing covering his short stories, and Pynchon's relation to literary history are more slight.

[Reilly Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gotta revisit ole Tommy P every once and awhile, and this was an absolute joy. Highly recommended for any other sufferers of Pynchon-induced psychosis