Overview

While Thomas Pynchon is usually described as an American author who primarily writes about American reality, Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene argues that his major novels, Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day, can profitably be read as a global trilogy that presents a coherent historical account of how the emergence and spread of European modernity across the world have had devastating consequences for the planet and its inhabitants. This book sets a new agenda in Pynchon studies, charting his early anticipation of anthropocenic and planetary ideas, including globalization's demand for constant growth. It combines close textual readings with broad perspectives on large thematic arcs and stylistic developments across Pynchon's entire career as well as an extensive dialogue with the rich reception of his work.

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9781009377577

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'Andersen ... writes with panache and in a vivid style, free of obscuring jargon ...' Jeffrey Severs, Orbit: A Journal of American Literature 'Planetary Pynchon puts together a sensitive, accurate portrait of an author whose works seem, on reflection, less a 'resigned demonstration' of the imperfect 'way the world works' and rather more 'an invitation for us to act differently'.' Guy Stevenson, Times Literary Supplement

Author Information

Tore Rye Andersen is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Aarhus University. He is the author of Den nye amerikanske roman/The New American Novel (2011), and he has published numerous articles on Thomas Pynchon and other American and British authors in journals such as Critique, Narrative, and Poetics Today.

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