Pynchon, Thomas (pĭn`chən), 1937–, American novelist, b. Glen Cove, N.Y., grad. Cornell Univ., 1958. Pynchon is noted for his amazingly fertile imagination, his wild sense of humor, and the teeming complexity of his novels. He is sometimes grouped with authors of black humor black humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony.
..... Click the link for more information. (such as Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. (vŏn`əgət) 1922–2007, American novelist, b. Indianapolis.
..... Click the link for more information. and Joseph Heller Heller, Joseph, 1923–99, American writer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Heller is best known for his first novel, Catch-22 (1961). Set in World War II, it is a darkly humorous commentary on the illogic of war and bureaucracy.
..... Click the link for more information. ), who turned from realism to fantasy to depict 20th-century American life. His early novels include V. (1963) and The Crying of Lot 49 (1966). His masterpiece is Gravity's Rainbow (1973, National Book Award), which displays his diverse erudition. Set in London during World War II, it is a discursive rumination on war and death. In 1984, he published a collection of early writings, Slow Learner. His later novels are Vineland (1990), the witty and encyclopedic Mason & Dixon (1997), and the sprawling Against the Day (2006).

Bibliography

See studies by T. Tanner (1982), P. L. Cooper (1983), D. Seed (1988), S. C. Weisenburger (1988), J. Dugdale (1990), A. McHoul and D. Wills (1990), J. W. Slade (1990), J. Chambers (1992), H. Berressem (1993), A. W. Brownlie (2000), A. Mangen and R. Gaasland, ed. (2002), N. Abbas, ed. (2003), and H. Bloom, ed. (2003).

Pynchon, Thomas

(born May 8, 1937, Glen Cove, Long Island, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. writer. He studied physics at Cornell University and worked briefly as a technical writer before devoting himself to fiction. Beginning with his first novel, V. (1963), a complex, cynically absurd tale that juxtaposes scenes of 1950s hipster life with symbolic images of the entire century, his works have combined black humour and fantasy to depict human alienation in the chaos of modern society. The idea of conspiracy is central to The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and to his masterpiece, Gravity's Rainbow (1973), an extraordinary novel about the end of World War II, full of paranoid fantasy, grotesque imagery, and esoteric scientific and anthropological material. Later works include the novels Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006) and the story collection Slow Learner (1984). He has lived in hiding or incognito for decades, refusing to grant interviews or be photographed.

Pynchon, Thomas (Ruggles, Jr.) (1937– ) writer; born in Glen Cove, N.Y. He studied at Cornell (B.A. 1958), lived in Greenwich Village for a year, and worked on the house publication of Boeing Aircraft (Seattle, Wash.). He moved to Mexico while finishing his first novel, V. (1963), and later settled in California. An intensely private writer, he refused to be interviewed or photographed. He is best known for his novel, Gravity's Rainbow (1973), an ingenious examination of language and an attempt to organize the ideas and systems of modern life. A collection of short stories, Slow Learner (1984), has also been published.