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Thomas Pynchon is a Dog in Against the Day

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My Novel Lionel Lancet and the Right Vibe is out now.
www.lulu.com/e...
For more about me and my work, go to danielbacker.com
In this video, I talk about how I think Thomas Pynchon casts himself as a dog in Against the Day, and how this is a peculiar, interesting narrative frame for the book.

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31 дек 2019

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Комментарии : 31

@offthewallnovels1292 3 года назад

I’m releasing a novel on August 15 called Lionel Lancet and the Right Vibe. It was undoubtedly inspired by Thomas Pynchon.

@clashcitywannabe 4 года назад

I think it's worth noting that there are stories about talking dogs and their history in all 3 of Pynchon's "big" novels, Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, and Against The Day

@offthewallnovels1292 4 года назад

Thanks for bringing this up. I haven't read Gravity's Rainbow in about 6 years. What are the specifics of the talking dog?

@clashcitywannabe 4 года назад

@@offthewallnovels1292 in Gravity's Rainbow there is a talking dog that escapes from a lab during a bombing raid in London where researchers were conducting Pavlovian experiments. Later in the book a whole city of talking dogs appears on the eastern front near the end pf ww2. In Mason & Dixon there is a character named The Learned English Dog who claims that his learning to talk was an evolution of dogs learning to please humans so that they wouldn't be eaten.

@jordanparsons5703 3 года назад

Really interesting theory. Makes me reconsider the Learned English Dog in Mason & Dixon. Perhaps also a cipher for Pynchon? The dog does after all sort of frame the novel, with a comic appearance at the beginning and a melancholy, ambiguous appearance at the end.

@Lucy-gc4js 2 месяца назад

I just started it and now it makes this book already so great!!!

@offthewallnovels1292 2 месяца назад

Enjoy!!!!

@bjwnashe5589 10 месяцев назад

The dog reading Henry Adams is also a big clue. Adams was a key influence on Pynchon. Also, Pynchon was a technical writer (a PR flack) at Boeing. He was not qualified to do actual engineering there. Pynchon did not have a degree in engineering.

@offthewallnovels1292 10 месяцев назад

Ah! Thank you for this. I was unaware of that.

@kid5Media 6 месяцев назад

Whilst the Henry Adams Pynchon connection has been noted, the passage quoted refers to Henry James.

@StankPlanks 4 года назад

Very interesting listen. I loved Against the Day (listened to majority of it on audiobook).

@lisawilder7626 4 года назад

great commentary! you make me want to read the book again

@offthewallnovels1292 4 года назад

thanks! I want to reread it myself, but it's just so long.

@yungluddite9 3 года назад

Great theory. Probably correct. Ruggles is, after all, a master of the Shaggy Dog Story...

@philipbrown2225 Год назад

interesting -I need to read this book

@adamskorupskas2184 Год назад

spot on

@kid5Media 6 месяцев назад

Pynchon was not an engineer at Boeing. He wrote for the Boeing in-house magazine.

@offthewallnovels1292 6 месяцев назад

Thank you!

@danasheys9300 3 года назад

Well done

@offthewallnovels1292 3 года назад

Thanks for watching!

@tylerbrown9797 4 года назад

All it took was the title of your video and then you reading the passage for it to freight train me in the face that of course pynchon is pugnax! Brilliant hahahaha I never saw that before but it fits wayyyyyy too perfect.

@offthewallnovels1292 4 года назад

haha, I didn't catch it on the first read through, I was actually going through it again to do a reading about the World's Fair, but I thought this was cooler.

@Fonnessu1992 4 года назад

What I find additionally interesting in that passage, if this reading was really intended by Pynchon, is that the shit Pugnax produces is the object of many interrogations bordering on the religious from the people on the ground. It does kind of look like a jab directed to the overthinking fans, doesn't it? I don't think Pynchon would have written books so complex if he didn't want readers to overthink them a bit... but this kind of paranoid inducing device definitely fits his style.

@offthewallnovels1292 4 года назад

That's a good point. However, I think it's more of self deprecation on his part, that he is basically creating turds for us to enjoy :)