Point Books Supposing Against the Day
| Original Title: | Against the Day |
| ISBN: | 159420120X (ISBN13: 9781594201202) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Locus Award Nominee for Best SF Novel (2007), Βραβείο Λογοτεχνικής Μετάφρασης ΕΚΕΜΕΛ for Αγγλόφωνη Λογοτεχνία (2010), International Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2008) |
Thomas Pynchon
Hardcover | Pages: 1085 pages Rating: 4.13 | 6285 Users | 785 Reviews
Describe Out Of Books Against the Day
| Title | : | Against the Day |
| Author | : | Thomas Pynchon |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 1085 pages |
| Published | : | November 21st 2006 by Penguin Press |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. Steampunk |
Relation Concering Books Against the Day
Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all. With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred. The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx. As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them. Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction. Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck. --Thomas Pynchon About the Author: Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland and, most recently, Mason and Dixon. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.Rating Out Of Books Against the Day
Ratings: 4.13 From 6285 Users | 785 ReviewsWeigh Up Out Of Books Against the Day
For anyone looking at the page-count and thinking 'F--- that!' please reconsider. While jam-packed with ideas and attractively-deployed disquisitions upon most imaginable subjects, this is as entertaining a great book as you may ever discover. It's a total blast and may well be the best way into Pynchon other than Lot 49.Go read Geoff's review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Then go read Theroux's great review in the WSJ - http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB1164..." If there is an inevitability to arrival by water, he reflected, as we watch the possibilities on the shore being progressively narrowed at last to the destined quay or slip, there is no doubt a mirror-symmetry about departure, a denial of inevitability, an opening out from the point of embarkation, beginning the moment all lines are
AtD blasted me away with its scale and swath(e). The fact that he was able to keep that giant mega-ball rolling, doubling, wrapping it all up at the end still amazes me. I've said this other places, but GR is Pynchon's most important novel (to date), M&D is my favorite (oh, the ending Sir, the ending), but AtD is his BEST. Pynchon absolutely doubles down on his paranoia, his doubling, his funk and sizzle. He circumnavigates the globe detailing, explaining, entertaining, and just riffing on
A bewildering book. Reading this is like standing on a sideline watching the turn of the century. Pynchon is right there beside you and flipping through the scenes showing you how the common people in that era behaved through his eyes. This is definitely not a history book yet there are real-life characters, e.g., Tesla, Kovaleskaya, and even himself (Pynchon), or real world events, e.g., 1893 Chicago World's Fair, World War I, etc. Still, the bulk of the story is fictional and only uses history
Some works are so densely, elaborately planned and plotted that any map to their intricacies would necessarily be longer than the work itself. This, I think, is the justification and promise of post-modern literature, with works reaching further in all directions and via as many tools as possible. Against the Day is one such work: almost any given line or action may upon study be split, like light through a prism, into a full spectrum of significant motifs.And so Against the Day serves as a
I'm not sure that I can review this. Honestly. I'm overwhelmed with the sheer sprawling immensity and lack of cohesion except for just a few special points... the big ones happening to be light and light's refraction, and anarchism.SAY WHAT?Yeah. That's kinda my view, too. It's set up with seemingly hundreds of little scenes and build-ups starting all the way back to Chicago's World's Fair and ending after WWI and never staying in any place for very long. Want to globe-trot around the world? Hop
I loved traveling along the four parallel storylines of this, the longest of Pynchon's books. I think I fell in love with Dahlia Rideout (sorry Kit). I wanted to be one of the Chums of Chance or at least read their books to my kid with the Hardy Boys. I wanted to have a whiskey with Lew Basnight (although I may have been terrified). I loved the bad guys and the good guys and really all the characters here. There was so much to enjoy, so much to think about, never a dull moment. Of all of
0 Comments:
Post a Comment