American History As Told By Thomas Pynchon

[@Draxtor]

Excellent! I am on a total Pynchon binge and now I am rereading BLEEDING EDGE right after I put it down ... sigh ... will take a while to get through everything ....

[@w8681]

Hey bro great analysis of Pynchon’s insane bibliography; thanks for posting this. 👌🏻

[@ashulman2008]

Hat tip from the Pynchon in Public podcast. Great overview

[@loganwarner176]

such a fantastic and well crafted video. i was shocked when i looked and you had just over 1K subscribers, definitely deserve more

[@milodusty6927]

i absolutely love that brilliantly beautiful excerpt from against the day. it was the first pynchon novel i read and that excerpt is one of my favorite parts along with the very ending

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

I love this paragraph: "So the city became the material expression of a particular loss of innocence - not sexual or political innocence but somehow a shared dream of what a city might at its best prove to be - its inhabitants became, and have remained, an embittered and amnesiac race, wounded but unable to connect through memory to the moment of injury, unable to summon the face of their violator."

[@multismashify]

W.A.S.T.E. is not itself a secret society. It's an acronym concerning the secret society Trystero.

[@LITTIPS]

Thanks for pointing out!

[@hhdhpublic]

Yet theres no new hardcover version of gravitys rainbow

[@pantalaemon]

Yo im sorry but this is the ONLY time in my life i can flex with this: i have one! An old one! From 73! Its ratchet af! I’ll probably never read it for fear of it disintegrating!

[@zhouan9570]

Thank you.

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

Great job. I'd like to see you do a longer video with more excerpts from the novels. My least favourite Pynchon novels are Vineland and V., in that order. I really like Against the Day, even though it could be a slog at times, and I love Inherent Vice, which seems to me to be a much better attempt at what he tried to do with Vineland (the death of the hippie dream, the hypocrisy of former hippies embracing Reaganomics). Gravity's Rainbow is beautiful. Sumptuously readable. Those first few pages are just gorgeous. Naptha winters, I would coat all the booze corroded stomachs of England, banana pancakes for breakfast, Slothrop imagining a V2 rocket landing right on top of his head... I love this passage from Inherent Vice. "Was it possible, that at every gathering- concert, peace rally, love-in, be-in, and freak in, here, up north, back east, wherever - those dark crews had been busy all along, reclaiming the music, the resistance to power, the sexual desire from epic to everyday, all they could sweep up, for the ancient forces of greed and fear?" It's classic Pynchon. The omniscient "They" of paranoid Pynchonland were there even as he frolicked on Manhattan Beach and smoked joints and lowered the blinds to work on Gravity's Rainbow for days on end. What if even the most innocent and wholesome hours of his life were monitored and recorded and kept on file?

[@mongolianqwerty123]

A curiously overlooked aspect of Pynchon is the likelihood of his being a CIA media agent himself. His ties to the the military, to intelligence and the occult hint at this, not to mention the heaps of praise and attention given his work by the major periodicals despite their obscenity and inaccessibility. The man seems awfully well connected for being so famously reclusive

[@alekseycalvin534]

Please cite at least a couple of credibly evidence-based and palpably critical sources in support of such claims. To be clear, I'm not claiming you're wrong. Yet, on their own, the arguments above seem only speculative. Of course. I could just Google it myself. However, what I'm most interested in is what specifically convinced You. And I have little confidence I would come across the same sources as you, were I to start searching online. Who knows what sorts of paths the algorithm would draw for me here? After all, these days every googler gets their own custom basket of search results: to each worldview their own private fodder from the Great Non-Evil feeder et al. So, unless we were to both use private browsing or a VPN set to the same region, we're unlikely to come across the same sources searching. Granted, due to its structure, Wikipedia can often serve as a fine exception, and the next best thing to print. Yet, even there, the info-sets/facts shown and emphasized (as well as the implicit biases of the pseudo-objective articulations/phrasing) can be vastly different across different languages. I sometimes compare English pages against Russian and French. And such cross-comparisons can quickly turn into real meta-rabbithole mindfucks... But I digress. In short: Please keep being critical! And help others be more critical as well. And that means consolidating cross-checked (and, importantly, diverse) sources! On another tangent: I do hope more people start seeing the wider implications of the reality/information tunnels most of us are being burrowed into. It seems like an incredibly efficient mechanism of mass disempowerment, by fragmentation and subjectivization of shared facts and realities. I really don't think I'm saying anything too surprising or new though. As per sources of my own: for starters, watch Adam Curtis's "Oh Dear" (short film) or longer "...Machines of Loving Grace", "Hypernormalization"... All are on KZbin. And check out McKenzie Wark's recent writings, especially the book "Capital Is Dead Is This Something Worse", maybe articles (I'll come back and post stuff, if anyone's interested). Plus, stuff on the Situationists, like Wark's "The Beach Beneath The Street", Greil Marcus's "Lipstick Traces". Also, Guy Debord's classics "Society of the Spectacle" (1967) (It's a complicated book. But here's a cool illustrated guide: hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/ ), as well as Debord's much later "Comments to Society..." (1988) (theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guy-debord-comments-on-the-society-of-the-spectacle), Deleuze's "Postscript to Society of Control" (1992) ( home.lu.lv/~ruben/Deleuze%20-%20Postscript%20On%20The%20Societies%20Of%20Control.pdf ) To this list I would also add the books/articles by late Mark Fisher (aka K-punk): basically anything he wrote. Ultimately, these are some of the works I consider to be retrospectively elucidating about how, and maybe even Why, we got here as a (globalizing) society...

[@mongolianqwerty123]

@@alekseycalvin534 Thank you for your response The assertion I'm making of Pynchon being an intelligence asset is something that - by its nature - is not available to be fact checked and quoted openly in sourcebooks. This material is fated to wander through inquisitive minds without reference to any published list of working operatives. Obviously, such lists would be suspect anyway. The inference was drawn from his family ancestry of colonial leaders and politicians, his education at Cornell (and membership to the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity - a known spook recruitment pool) and his quick-switch out of there by enlisting in the military and becoming a naval engineer, then quick switchback into Cornell again to become a writer. All these biographical facts taken together point to a conclusion that is never explicitly stated, but the shape emerges when viewing the gestalt. Combine that with the preoccupations in his works and I would say there isn't a writer currently living more likely to be a media agent than Thomas Pynchon. The silence regarding this possibility in the mainstream isn't surprising, but the bizarre lack of speculation from the "truther" community pretty much clinches it, imho. The conspiracy theory media is simply another branch of the MSM anyway, a second farm to herd and hold the faux enlightened, managed by the intelligence agencies. I don't want to go off on that particular tangent in a youtube post, but I hope it makes you curious since you seem like a thoughtful person (and it pertains to your concerns about rabbit-hole/mindfuck time-sinks), and because writers like Pynchon function to pre-establish the parameters of discussion in those communities. I hope that makes my reasoning a little more clear. Cheers!

[@diegog60281]

Him going to the navy right after leaving Cornell then working at Boeing does seem like the path one would take when they’re getting groomed to be in the CIA. I don’t think Pynchon thought anything of it until way later

[@jeremyhopkins577]

@@mongolianqwerty123 How would his novels serve the interests of the CIA?

[@heathbrougher5000]

I’ll float a theory. There is no “Thomas Pynchon.” He is a group of writers put together by whatever big time press that publishes his books in order to “conjure” an all star edgy writer. How the hell can one person know everything about everything!!?? Also, I just realized, this idea likely spawned a 55 pg book of completely nonsensical poetry I wrote and am going to publish and promote under a pseudonym. I’m going to stack this writer’s bio with awards and academic acclaim to see if people actually fall for it. Something tells me they will. Lol. Lastly, are we fling to be informed when Pynchon dies? Duane Locke was still pumpin out brilliance at age 105. If Pynchon is a phantom of the book company he should have AT LEAST another 2 books to pump out. What is this “Lancaster Massacre” book I’ve been hearing about. That’s not the title of one of his short stories? Is it? Help me, I’m sleepstarved! lol!

[@senoreverything6366]

Woah this is high quality

[@nozecone]

I found Gravity's Rainbow and V. brilliant and captivating. Lot 49 I didn't think in the same league, and I don't believe I got through Vineland; all I remember about it is that I found it tedious. Haven't read the others ... yet.

[@lo-ficranetv2106]

Have you ever heard of Michael S. Judge? He has some of the best commentary on Pynchon and especially GR

[@nozecone]

@@lo-ficranetv2106 No, but thanks - I'll check him out!

[@gregoryberrycone]

against the day and mason and dixon are also fantastic and id highly recommend them. id also look into John Barth, his writing style is very distinct from Pynchons but he has a similarly encyclopedic knowledge base and a very sardonic sense of humor. The floating Opera, The End of the Road and especially the Sot-Weed Factor were all excellent.

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

Vineland is Pynchon's worst novel, by FAR. I did not like it at all.

[@eggandscorpion]

Excellent, clear-eyed analysis.

[@knicksfule]

Against the Day is my favorite novel of all time

[@gregoryberrycone]

I watched Knives Out by Rian Johnson recently and i have to say the reference to Gravitys Rainbow in that film is one of the most cringe worthy moments i can recall encountering in a film. the movie was otherwise a decent enough watch but the reference felt so out of place and just made me compare the two works and unsurprisingly I found Knives Out pales in comparison to Gravitys Rainbow in every conceivable way. I feel like Johnson just wanted to show how smart and well read he is by referencing it but he also pokes fun at it, implying "noones actually read it" (something i hear about books like infinite jest and other door stopper novels all the time) which just annoys me since its a very well known masterpiece among fans of literature.

[@dububro]

In his defense, there certainly are many people who have given up reading Gravity's Rainbow, including at least one member of the Pulitzer board that denied Pynchon the prize after the jury unanimously voted for it.

[@thethe5912]

This comment is more cringe worthy than the movie's reference.

[@gregoryberrycone]

@@thethe5912 nah its fine

[@nathanieledwards3302]

I like the comment and thought the same thing! Even though the novel is an ABSOLUTE CHALLENGE it is rewarding. Especially the stranger more disturbing parts, they keep me going

[@AviNerenberg]

The cardinal sin of moviemaking, reminding your audience about a better piece of fiction than what they're currently watching 😆

[@nopeISdope96]

I just feel like he’s slowly but surely putting the truth out there, and has to be anonymous in order to continue to do so.

[@tonywords6713]

marvelous

[@lewbasnight6283]

Such a good video!

[@wyldstile5358]

Really enjoyed this analysis. Quick question, do you have the name of the song that plays at 7:30?

[@drbuckley1]

For Pynchon, nothing happens by accident; for Vonnegut, everything happens by accident. Cabal or chaos? I lean more toward Vonnegut.

[@henryharrison6024]

Good stuff

[@flynnjaman]

Also, Under The Silverlake is a solid Pynchonesque film

[@hyperTorless]

This was a good video but the numerous "swoop" sound effects throughout the video are an annoyance.

[@MrJohnQCitizen]

That's a replica of the Matthew! Bristol city harbour UK

[@kennyhagan5781]

Going to try this stuff,sounds different.

[@ivanbonet4]

Good video

[@richbraatz6976]

Good

[@ru4realzzz]

what order should i read them?

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

1. The Crying of Lot 49 (start with the shortest one to see if you like his irreverence, his humour, the accumulation of conspiracies, and his tendency to interrupt his plots with gorgeous sunblasts of rhapsodic prose-poetry) 2. Gravity's Rainbow (his most respected novel and his biggest seller...has some of his best writing) 3. Inherent Vice 4. Mason & Dixon 5. Against the Day 6. V. 7. Bleeding Edge 8. Slow Learner 9. Vineland (it's really his worst effort)

[@cgbleak]

Brief summaries of Pynchon's novels do not count as "American History As Told By Thomas Pynchon." The discrepancy between title and content might be setting viewers up for disappointment.

[@davidmcginness6718]

Well he does engage in comparison and outlines common themes across the novels so I wouldn't say it was a con

[@timpoovey4317]

yeah I wish KZbin would change their name also cuz its misleading. herb

[@8bactrianpollicem456]

I got to the part of Gravity's Rainbow where an entire page was written in Sanscrit and decided the pretentious twit had absolutely nothing to say.

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

There's no page in G.R. written entirely in Sanskrit. Pynchon puts algebra and mathematical power series in his books and sometimes writes in other languages without translating, but McCarthy does the same thing with Spanish in his novels. Also, the sheer breadth and length of Pynchon's books (especially Against the Day, Mason & Dixon, and Gravity's Rainbow) demonstrate that the guy might have TOO MUCH to say, not too little.

[@Mooseman327]

As far as I know, I've read everything Pynchon has published, every article and foreword, and, of course, every book, some of them multiple times. There's a LOT of truth in what Pynchon writes about BUT, of course, it's not the entire truth. He's a great gateway to doing your own research into all these matters. For example, secret societies exist but they are not uniform at all. Even within one of them, you will find different battling factions. The only thing we can say for certain is that official history as it's been handed down to us is a pack of lies and coverups. The Firesign Theater's "Everything You Know is Wrong" sums that up nicely. Here's a Pynchonian truth, for example, that must be expanded upon. As you note, Pynchon wonders in Mason & Dixon if there were a malevolent spirit (or spirits) existing in the Americas ready to pounce on the naive. Well, not only did the native Americans think this was so but the secret societies of Europe thought so as well, and this is why, although the ancients all knew the Americas existed, they put a kabosh on exploring the Americas until the late 15th century, the Age of Exploration. They thought that human beings had to develop further in order to be able to resist these malevolent spiritual forces that exist in the Americas. They may have jumped the gun too soon, though. Right now, we're witnessing these bad spirits tearing apart all the good that was incorporated in the founding of the country. Pynchon also, in Gravity's Rainbow reveals the weirdnesses around the Nazi rocket program that we incorporated into this country both during and after the war. WWII for the U.S. government was a big effort at bringing Nazism into the U.S. and hiding it in aerospace, financial, military, intelligence, and pharma structures. Pynchon, himself, met some of these ex-Nazi engineers and scientists at Boeing. And there they remain today causing 90% of all ill on the planet. Pynchon is indispensable but only a starting point for all this. My advice is to read everything Pynchon has ever written and, then, keep reading and researching those points that you find most fascinating. Worth a lifetime of study.

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

Good point. I remember Pynchon writing something about the Illuminati once being a powerful secret society until splinter groups proliferated and now they're just a glorified Masonic Order. I think it's in Gravity's Rainbow. Whether he believes that is one matter, but it's a clever way of taking their malevolence away from them.

[@flynnjaman]

I’ve actually heard this is TP’s favorite YT video about him, him famously once saying, “It sounded as if Beavis or Butthead or both had somehow found a brain to work with. I really identified with it. ❤️!”

[@ethanduman2228]

The funny thing is I believe you.

[@nynland2163]

Literally a day ago I finished Vineland and now this comes out, nice

[@ronanmccarron3259]

This is a cool video

[@ramdularsingh1435]

Pynchon wrote for the sake of Literature nothing else. That's how he is different from most others in world literature today.......

[@MoonFlowerMom]

V has many different time periods and locations

[@Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh17]

Reading Gravity’s Rainbow rn, it’s my first of his and now I consider him the best contemporary American author. I’ve read all of McCarthy and a decent amount of Delillo and a bit of Roth as well as countless other great American or American adjacent authors like Faulkner, Hemingway, Nabokov, etc, plenty of modernists and post modernists, and I can ultimately say that this book, in my hundred or so pages of reading, is the culmination of literally everything. In the same way he views WWII to be the apex of humanity, I consider Gravity’s rainbow to be the apex of literature.

[@betterdaysareatoenailaway]

Those first few pages of Gravity's Rainbow are so sumptuously readable. Naptha winters, great invisible crashing, a screaming comes across the sky...

[@yeeerrrrrrr]

I remember sniffing my farts too

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

I love everything about this video! Accessible yet nuanced and complex; an engaging editing style that was extremely interesting; a clear familiarity with Pynchon instead of a Wikipedia-like regurgitation of facts. This is going to prove a great resource for those wanting to get into Pynchon!

[@Mato431]

TP is definitely the most difficult read I have ever experienced, as a Non American I Guess a LOT of refferences passed me by, but , you know, I tried :)

[@LITTIPS]

Even for Americans, TP is challenging. But in the words of Michael S. Judge, great literature are those works that you can read over and over and walk away having learned or experienced something new (or something like that). That's the beauty of truly great literature. :) Thanks for watching.

[@dionysianapollomarx]

Hi. Amateur reader here. I never understand why writers capitalized common nouns like they indicate a specific proper noun somewhere. Wondering if there's an answer to this. Just saw an example of that in your excerpt of Mason & Dixon. Thanks for the cool video.

[@LITTIPS]

My guess is capitalizing common nouns was a feature of the time. If you read the handwriting of older journals, say, from the 1700s, you'll notice this too. Gradually, it seems to have just fallen away. We suspect it may have something to do with the increased use of proper nouns for corporations and brands -- but that might be us overthinking it. We'll have to do a little further digging.

[@nozecone]

In this case, Pynchon is clearly imitating the writing-style of the 18th century: the rules were not as strict as they became by the end of the 19th century; writers seemed to feel free to capitalize nouns wherever they fancied - so, it could be because they felt a certain noun was particularly important, or because they liked the process of making, for example, a capital-G, or for no reason at all. Remember, as well, that writers wrote with pen and ink, and the script of the 18th century was ornate compared to writing as it was commonly taught by the mid-20th century. I'm no authority on this, btw, so I'm willing to stand corrected .....

[@mattfranco23]

Well in the modern sense it’s to deify a noun such as Time, Narcissist, or Death like you would God. A mythological idea of animating this emotion or idea. I believe in Mason Dixon Pynchon satirized this using the 18th century excuse as was mentioned. Being a postmodern writer and all, he loved to be jarring. He does this overtly to deify things in GR but I’ve not read Mason Dixon yet.

[@TheViralPulse]

Very well put together. Subbed

[@kevinlaing8550]

Reading that first quote, pompous, bombastic and posturing are words that spring to mind. Still, it's Pynchon, so post-modernist irony can excuse it, maybe.

[@pantalaemon]

Oh come on cantcha enjoy some style for style’s same

[@pantalaemon]

Plus its not like he hasnt got anything to say with it

[@dububro]

If you think that's bad don't look up Mason & Dixon :^)