This past Christmas came early for me.
November twenty-second, to be exact: the day that the rabid fans of Thomas Pynchon, myself included, finally received his latest novel "Against the Day."
Not counting a few animated guest spots on "The Simpsons," it had been over six years since the public has heard anything from the reclusive writer. Then, as if to make up for his long absence, he drops the eleven-hundred page bomb that is "Against the Day."
My first reaction to the book was one of unbridled enthusiasm.
Pynchon's books have long been favorites of mine: complex, densely allusive, incredibly insightful, and often laugh-out-loud funny texts that make him one of the most important American writers of any century.
"Against" seems, in many ways, to pick up from where Pynchon's mega-novel "Mason and Dixon" left off: with a humorous barrage of historical places and fantastic action.
Like most of Pynchon's novels, the cast of characters can be unnerving; I would conservatively say that there are forty main characters in "Against," each with a dozen supporting characters surrounding them. The author does manage to do a lot with each character, as the action of the novel switches from the American West to Austria, France, Germany, Egypt, and Turkey.
The main plot follows the Traverse children-Reef, Kit, Frank, and Lake-as they try to avenge the death of their terrorist father Webb Traverse.
While "Against the Day" is a staggeringly intelligent novel-Pynchon should be acknowledged, if for nothing else, for the sheer amount of research this project must have taken-it fails largely because of its largeness.
There's simply too much information and too many subplots for one novel--even for Pynchon, the master of the mega-novel. While "Against" matches some of his best work-like "V." and "Gravity's Rainbow"-in complexity, the subplots and digressions often lack the humor of his previous novels, leaving the ordinary reader bored as well as confused.
"Against" also lacks the transcendental quality of the author's previous successes: the feeling that, underneath all the bells and whistles, there was an important message.
"Against the Day" appears doomed to be one of Pynchon's "other novels": the ones that can't stand up to the masterpiece of "Gravity's Rainbow."
While monumental and expansive in its own right, "Against the Day" doesn't meet the expectations of its own rhetoric and expansive plot, not to mention the expectations of a student book reviewer who will have to wait a few more Christmases for Pynchon's next masterpiece.
Ben Clarke is a book critic for The Utah Statesman. Comments can be sent to him at benclarke@cc.usu.edu
Be the first to comment on this article!