Major Writers: Thomas Pynchon

English 440G     Fall 2009

John M. Krafft

     Thomas Pynchon (1937–) is often cited as the premier postmodern writer, as the greatest novelist since Faulkner, or Joyce, or Melville, and as the precursor of cyberpunk. Lyrical and slapstick, sophisticated and vulgar, profound and profane, exhilarating and disquieting, Pynchon's fiction invites the full range of literary and cultural studies--formal, linguistic, historical, narratological, psychoanalytic, reader-response, feminist, postcolonial, etc.
     We will explore, interrogate and construct Pynchon's texts in relation to a variety of theoretical, critical and historical interests and projects. Pynchon's work solicits an array of critical approaches, welcomes all degrees of theoretical sophistication and engages many kinds of ideological commitment. You can even take an oppositional stance, say, to the idea of Pynchon as a major or canonical writer, or to the effects and implications of his race, class and gender. You might also use Pynchon as a foil in your work on another writer.

Texts:1

Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
---, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
---, Inherent Vice (2009) [or possibly Vineland (1990) instead]
---, Slow Learner (1984)
---, V. (1963)
Weisenburger, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel, 2nd ed (2006) (recommended)

     The three short pieces below are available on electronic reserve through the university libraries' website:
Pynchon, "A Journey into the Mind of Watts" (1966)
---, Letter to Thomas F. Hirsch (1968)
---, "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" (1959)
     If you are curious about other essays, introductions, a book recommendation, a book review, support notices, liner notes, a band interview, technical articles or juvenilia, just ask me for details and pointers.

Syllabus:

     For class discussion to succeed, you need to have completed reading each assignment by the time we begin discussing it. Ideally, as I noted in the course announcement, you will be ready to reread Gravity's Rainbow in particular when we get to it. We will focus on one part at a time, but we can't avoid looking ahead as well; so if you haven't already done so, try to complete at least a cursory first reading of GR as early as possible.
     In case discussions overlap the dates of assigned readings below, please also bring the previous book or printout to a class in which we are scheduled to begin discussing a new work.
     We will choose between Vineland and Inherent Vice (I am leaning toward the latter) for our last novel. We don't have enough time for both, or for either Mason & Dixon or Against the Day. But you are welcome to read any of the unassigned novels on your own and even to make one of them the subject of your research or term project.

Requirements:

 1. Punctual completion of reading assignments.
     Again, you need to have completed reading each assignment by the time we begin discussing it.

 2. Informed and thoughtful participation in class discussion.
     To spur your preparation and participation, I ask you to submit a short interpretive question on the reading or a brief historical-research observation related to the reading during each week (after the first) when a paper is not due. Turn in your question or observation in hard copy (word processed, not hand written) at the start of each class marked on the syllabus with an asterisk. Also send it to me in a simple e-mail message (that is, not as a file attachment) before class. These questions and observations will not be graded individually but are an important component of your class participation, so be prepared to present your question or observation to the class--possibly even at a subsequent meeting. Besides spurring your engagement in learning with your classmates (to whom you are responsible for being thoughtful and informative, and from whom you will also learn by teaching), this requirement is intended to promote critical thinking. So pose questions that reasonable people can disagree about, and offer historical observations that are not mere casually Googled factoids but have some reflective or interpretive value added.

 3. Satisfactory and punctual completion of all writing assignments: six 2-page response papers, a 5–7-page research paper (or an equivalent research presentation) and a 12–15-page term project.
     These assignments, too, are intended to promote critical thinking and the reflection that can lead to effective action: see the section "Papers" below.
     You will turn in your papers by e-mail as attached Word (.doc, not .docx) files. (I will return them as printouts.) Follow standard formatting guidelines as if you were handing in hard copy. That is, double space, leave a one-inch margin all around, and so on. Please put your name at the very top of every paper you send me (even if you also include your name in a header or footer), flush left, with no blank lines above it and with nothing else on that first line.
     Papers must be well organized, adequately developed, coherent and substantially error-free in typography, spelling, grammar, mechanics and usage, and must be documented (notes and works-cited list) in correct form as appropriate. Poorly written work will be marked down accordingly.
     Late work will be marked down one letter for every day it is late unless we have agreed ahead of time about rescheduling it.

 4. Regular and punctual attendance.
     Since the class is based on discussion, we need you. If you know you must miss a class, let me know in advance, if only for courtesy's sake. Not getting in touch does send a message. Even illness is not an automatic excuse, especially if you don't call or e-mail me.
     If you miss more than two classes, especially without notifying me, I may have to drop you from the course. (According to university policy, absence for certain religious observances is not an attendance issue as discussed here: see MUPIM 10.1.)

Grading:

Response papers:   25%
Research paper/presentation: 25%
Term project:     35%
Class participation based on written questions/observations:  15%

This Course and the Miami Plan:

     English 440G is designed to achieve the four goals of the Miami Plan: thinking critically, understanding contexts, engaging with other learners, reflecting and acting. We will explore how and how meaningfully Pynchon's fiction represents long–twentieth-century international events and transformations, cultural expressions, political movements, social trends, and personal anxieties and traumas; discuss how those representations reflect corresponding phenomena of the 1960s and early 1970s, during which most of the works we read were written; and observe how the fiction limns the contours of today's global marketplace, media-saturated information/entertainment society, permanent war economy and security-state apparatuses. Thus, as we learn about Pynchon's fiction and the times about which and in which it was written, we also learn, directly and indirectly, about our own times. Here understanding contexts is inseparable from critical thinking. Ideally, we discover in literature not mirrors of but challenges to what we already think, and opportunities to expand and deepen our understanding.
     Thinking critically entails increased knowledge and understanding of twentieth-century political, cultural and military history, and of postmodernist literature and other arts. Be curious; ask questions; do research. Don't settle for easy, obvious, prefabricated answers. Engage in the supremely civilized (and civilizing) activity of argument, not only with yourself but also with others, in person and in writing. In that way, engaging with other learners becomes a means and an extension of critical thinking. Furthermore, this is a discussion class: it needs your informed and thoughtful participation--give and take. You will have the opportunity (though not be required) to present your research to the class live rather than as a paper. It is essential that we all interact cooperatively.
     The considerable reflection the course entails is not only an end in itself but also a preparation for lives of acting thoughtfully and responsibly as enlightened citizens. For instance, Gravity's Rainbow as a novel of emergent postwar internationalism helps us find our place in the global scene; as an early example of ecological fiction, it also militates against our wastage of the planet's natural as well as human resources. The idea that literature or any other art can help save the world may be naive, but the hope is still a powerful motive in education.

Papers:

 1. You will write six brief (approximately 2 pages each) response papers on topics of your choice, due on the dates noted on the syllabus. These papers can raise questions, wrestle with problems, identify significant issues or patterns, and/or experiment with possible readings. Tentative as they may be, they should demonstrate careful reading and close engagement with the texts. To make your responses interesting and meaningful to other readers too, you should provide some specific textual basis or evidence for what you say instead of merely saying what you feel or think. That goes as well even for the problems you may have (and you don't have to have all the answers). Feel free to raise any issues or draw attention to any problems in class discussion before or after you write about them. In fact, you should always have your papers with you in case I ask you to read from them to the class.
     I will mark each response paper either credit or no-credit and convert the total credit to a letter-grade equivalent at the end of the term.

 2. You may either write a short research paper (5–7 pages) or make a presentation to the class (20-25 minutes) based on your research into a relevant topic or critical theory such as entropy, Southwest African genocide, jazz, chemical cartels, rocketry-film-calculus, historiographic metafiction, feminism, narratology or discourse analysis. Pick something you are interested in and think others would be interested in if they knew more about it or realized how crucial it was to appreciating one or more of Pynchon's texts.
     Focus on a subject such as surrealism, or postal services, or the Hereros, or the Cold War (those are just more examples) that is important to our understanding of the fiction. Investigate and present your subject in its own right, and show how it relates to Pynchon. Although there is no right or wrong about the exact proportions here, consider focusing mainly on the subject itself (explaining it, giving its history or other background, discussing any theoretical underpinnings or any controversy surrounding it, and so on) as a way of providing readers with tools or resources they need, and then demonstrating some application to the fiction (one text, part of one text, or several texts). Of course, you may want to arouse interest by starting with the application and then turn to filling in the broader technical, historical or theoretical details beyond the fiction. Your purpose is to illuminate the fiction, make it more meaningful, for readers who haven't done the research you have but can benefit from your having done it.
     If you do a research presentation instead of a paper, please provide some sort of documentary support: for instance, a handout including an outline, illustrations, a bibliography, and so on.
     Especially if you intend to build your term project on the same topic as your research paper/presentation (which you can do but don't have to), you will be wise to include, not a simple works-cited list, but an annotated bibliography of the sources you used for the one and plan to use for the other. In any case, as an appendix to your works-cited list or annotated bibliography, rank your five to seven best sources according to their relative quality and usefulness, and explain why you rank each as you do.
     November 12 is the deadline for research papers, unless we negotiate a later date, but they can be handed in earlier. If you do a presentation instead, when you do it will depend on when your topic will be most relevant to class discussion.

 3. You will write a seminar paper or term project of 12–15 pages. It may grow out of either a response-paper topic or your research project if the topic and your continuing interest warrant, but you are free to choose a different topic if you prefer. For instance,
· you could do a research paper on feminism that was mostly about feminist politics or literary theory, but with some attention to Pynchon, suggesting the relevance of feminism to understanding characterization or sex roles in his fiction. Then your term project could be a full-dress application of the theory to the fiction, illuminating it, critiquing it, or the like. Or,
· you could do a research paper examining the Second-World-Wartime devastation of London or Germany and comparing the factual evidence with Pynchon's fictional depiction; then your term project could be an analysis of Pynchon's critique from the vantage of the gainers and losers by postwar social and political realignments, or from the vantage of the spectacular postwar economic boom. Or,
· your research project could investigate the likes of Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun as models for characters in Gravity's Rainbow, and your term paper could then explore Pynchon's use of these characters to comment on how the United States sanitized the past of selected war criminals and then turned them into heroes of the Cold War.
Again, though, your research and term projects need not be linked.
     Term projects do, however, necessarily involve a research component, if only so you will know what else has been written about your subject; but they are likely to focus more directly than research projects on the fiction itself. They are opportunities to do some practical criticism or applied theory.
     Term projects should have some discernable connection to Pynchon, but they can address "Pynchon and . . . ," even with the emphasis on "and"--other fiction about the Second World War, fiction about other wars, war poetry, war movies, other literature of the 1960s, to mention only a few possibilities.

 4. I will be happy to discuss possible topics for your papers at any time. Indeed, I expect to consult with you about your research and term projects well in advance. Please be sure you have my approval for a topic and approach before you go too far. I don't expect to have to resort to requiring and vetting written proposals, but I will if people seem to need that push.

 5. Here are a few research guidelines:
· Carefully evaluate the sources you use. Good sources are authoritative (well written by well-informed people with recognizable claims to expertise in their subjects), up to date, verifiable and as unbiased as possible. Beware of anonymous sources. Avoid sources described as "for students," since, ironically, they are often anything but authoritative.
· For research in the humanities, web-based sources alone are likely to prove inadequate. Some are excellent, but many are untrustworthy or insufficiently scholarly. Books and the articles in academic and professional journals (journals which, though not all web-based, are increasingly available on the web) are usually more reliable.
· If you start with encyclopedias, digests, summaries, compilations, reviews, popularizations or the like, don't stop with them. Follow the references and links in such works to their sources: primary documents, such as literary and historical texts, and complete scholarly essays and books.
· Read what you write about: don't just read about it.

 6. Little of our language and few of our ideas can ever be entirely original; but there are uses of other people's words, ideas and findings that we are ethically obliged to acknowledge. When you do research and your work is influenced by it (when you quote, paraphrase, summarize or borrow information or ideas--and this goes even for the discussions in textbooks and reference works), you must acknowledge your intellectual debts, explicitly in the body of your essay, in notes, and/or in a works-cited list. Otherwise, you may be guilty of plagiarism. (For instance, if you write that the chronology of Gravity's Rainbow "unfolds according to a carefully drawn circular design. . . . It is plotted like a mandala," or if you simply refer to the mandala-like structure of Pynchon's novel, you must give credit to Steven Weisenburger for this insight, preferably with a parenthetical citation keyed to an entry for A Gravity's Rainbow Companion in your works-cited list.) Formal research is only an example; you can incur the same obligation informally by reading the newspaper or surfing the web. So even if you think you already know what plagiarism is, see chapter 5 of The Student Handbook, "Academic Integrity," on the meaning and consequences of academic dishonesty. (This chapter and other resources are available online at <http://www.muohio.edu/integrity>.) Plagiarism is among the most serious, most contemptible, most intolerable of academic offenses. Don't risk it. Carefully document your references to the literature you write about and to any historical, cultural, critical or other sources you use in MLA style.

 7. E-mail your papers to me as attached Word (.doc, not .docx) files. Don't cut-and-paste or type them directly into e-mail messages, or send files in other formats--Works (.wps), for example. That doesn't mean you have to use Word to create your files; most other word processing programs let you save in Word format. When you are ready to send me a file, use the "Save as" function (accessible from the File menu) to save a copy in .doc format.
     The "Save as" function also gives you the opportunity to change your file's name. Change it from whatever you called it as you worked on it to a file name consisting of (1) your last name and (2) the identifying tag "responsex" or "research" or "term," depending on whether you are sending me a response paper, your research paper or your term project. Notes: (a) Omit the quotation marks around the tag words specified in the previous sentence; (b) in the case of a response paper, substitute the number of the response-paper assignment for the x; (c) your word processor will almost certainly add .doc to the file name. File names should look like this: krafftresponse3.doc; krafftresearch.doc; krafftterm.doc. Send me files with names constructed on that pattern only. (If two or more students have the same last name, they should use their MUNet user IDs instead as the first element in their file names.)
     I ask you to follow that file-naming scheme for my convenience and protection. To avoid confusion and the risk of viruses, I will delete files I can't immediately identify by the sender's last name, including files with descriptive names like "English paper," "Pynchon essay" or "The Rocket's Red Glare in Gravity's Rainbow." So for your protection, always follow the instructions above.

Further Points About E-Mail:

     Your Miami address is the one I will use when I need to e-mail you. You will be wise to write to me from your Miami address, since, when you do, your full name, not just your e-mail address or nickname, is displayed at the receiving end. If you write to me from an account that is not set up to allow display of your real name, my spam filter may block your messages, or I may not recognize them when I look through my in-box or my quarantine folder. If you would rather be Peggy Jones than Margaret Jones, or Bob Smith than Robert Smith, that's fine; but if you write as Pinky or The Hulk or eagle273, I won't know who you are and may not think finding out is urgent.
     If you would still rather use a different e-mail service (Yahoo or Gmail, for instance), configure your entry in the university directory (<http://www.muohio.edu/ph>) so any mail sent to your Miami address will be forwarded to the address you prefer. And configure your preferred mail program to display your real name for the people you write to.
     I can reply to a message from any address, but please do not ask me to initiate a message to you at a non-Miami address.
     Another way to avoid having your messages mistaken for spam even when they do display your real name is to use a specific, informative subject line. Don't leave it blank, and don't say simply “Hi” or “Help,” as spammers often do.
     I may set up an e-mail list or discussion board for class-related discussion. It would be a convenience for those who wanted to use it, but no one would be required to post to it. I could post announcements, modifications to assignments, readings or the like, and could occasionally ask permission to post, or ask the writer to post, an especially provocative interpretive question, observation or response paper.

Final Note:

     If you carry a pager or a phone, turn it off (don't just set it to vibrate) before class begins.

Books on Reserve

     I have put some of the better Pynchon criticism (though the essay collections are, in fact, quite uneven) on reserve. I have left many books off the list, some because they may be less immediately accessible or useful than others, and some because they seem hardly worth your bothering with at all. But don't let my judgment stop you from exploring whatever you think may help you. I have not put individual critical essays on reserve because the selected bibliography I started to prepare quickly got out of bounds, threatening to turn the course into one on Pynchon criticism instead of Pynchon. If you want to explore the criticism further, Mead's bibliography and the current bibliographies in Pynchon Notes are good places to start. Once you have an idea about what you might want to look at, I'll be happy to give you the benefit of my prejudices.

Abbas, Niran, ed. Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the Margins. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2003.
Berressem, Hanjo. Pynchon's Poetics: Interfacing Theory and Text. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1993.
Bérubé, Michael. Marginal Forces/Cultural Centers: Tolson, Pynchon, and the Politics of the Canon. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1992.
Bianchi, Petra, Arnold Cassola and Peter Serracino Inglott. Pynchon Malta and Wittgenstein. Msida: Malta U Pub., 1995.
Carter, Dale. The Final Frontier: The Rise and Fall of the American Rocket State. London: Verso, 1988.
Clerc, Charles, ed. Approaches to Gravity's Rainbow. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1983.
Cowart, David. Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Allusion. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1980.
Dugdale, John. Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables of Power. New York: St. Martin's, 1990.
Grant, J. Kerry. A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49. 1994. 2nd ed. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2008.
Grant, J. Kerry. A Companion to V. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2001.
Hite, Molly. Ideas of Order in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1983.
Hurley, Patrick J. Pynchon Character Names: A Dictionary. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
Kolbuszewska, Zofia. The Poetics of Chronotope in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon. Lublin: Learned Society of the Catholic U of Lublin, 2000.
Levine, George and David Leverenz, eds. Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.
Mangen, Anne and Rolf Gaasland, eds. Blissful Bewilderment: Studies in the Fiction of Thomas Pynchon. Oslo: NOVUS, 2002.
McHale, Brian. Constructing Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1992.
McHoul, Alec and David Wills. Writing Pynchon: Strategies in Fictional Analysis. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1990.
Mead, Clifford. Thomas Pynchon: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1989.
Medoro, Dana. The Bleeding of America: Menstruation as Symbolic Economy in Pynchon, Faulkner, and Morrison. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
Mendelson, Edward, ed. Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978.
O'Donnell, Patrick, ed. New Essays on The Crying of Lot 49. New York: Cambridge UP, 1991.
Oklahoma City University Law Review 24.3 (1999). Special issue, Thomas Pynchon and the Law, ed. Shubha Ghosh. [In fact, not on reserve, but online: log on to the library's website and go to <http://heinonline.org.proxy.lib.muohio.edu/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/okcu24&id=7>.]
Pearce, Richard, ed. Critical Essays on Thomas Pynchon. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981.
Schaub, Thomas H. Pynchon: The Voice of Ambiguity. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1981.
Schaub, Thomas H., ed. Approaches to Teaching Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Other Works. New York: MLA, 2008.
Seed, David. The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1988.
Smith, Zak. Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow. Portland, OR: Tin House, 2006.
Weisenburger, Steven. A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel. 1988. 2nd ed., rev. and exp. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2006.

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