Hooray! You have added the first book to your bookshelf. Check it out now!
[−]
  • Search Digit-count Valid ISBN Invalid ISBN Valid Barcode Invalid Barcode
Blog this item

Against the Day

By Thomas Pynchon

(25)

| Paperback | 9780143112563

Like Against the Day?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Sign up for free

Book Description

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 TungusContinue

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

Critics

  • The carnival goes on (and on)

    Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon 1,104pp, Jonathan Cape, £20 The mind of Thomas Pynchon has never seemed quite plausibly human. Aside from the prodigious holding capacity, there's a sense, in his best work, of unnatural powers of connection: a sorce ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • There's no doubting Thomas

    Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon Jonathan Cape, £20, pp 1,085 In July the wires were humming. Browsing Pynchonomanes had been alerted to a listing on Amazon.com, a 270-word blurb for a brand new book by the cult writer who is so determinedly elusive ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

Login or Sign Up to write a review

  • "It was too long!" I used to wail - but it's better than Pynchon's latest. He's trying to be Hunter S. Thompson, but his characters are so unbelievable in Inherent Vice. Against the Day's Yashmeen changes from scene to scene. Pynchon needs to study more real people. But I loved a lot of this book. I ... (continue)

    "It was too long!" I used to wail - but it's better than Pynchon's latest. He's trying to be Hunter S. Thompson, but his characters are so unbelievable in Inherent Vice. Against the Day's Yashmeen changes from scene to scene. Pynchon needs to study more real people. But I loved a lot of this book. I miss V.

    Is this helpful?

    DustMoteVII said on Mar 23, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • So so.

    I'm a big fan of Pynchon, but this one was just a struggle to get through. Think it took me about 6 months. Maybe there was just too much happening: too many plot threads going on. Preferred Mason and Dixon to this one.

    Is this helpful?

    peripatetic said on May 27, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

Improve data of this book

Groups with this in collection

Groups conversations

Margin notes of this book

Prices Change currency & sellers

ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9780143112563 Paperback $18.00 $15.39 bn.com
$18.00 $18.18 The Book Depository
Other editions →
+ 1 copy tradable: →
Added to Shelf Added to Wish List

Inline Translation Mode

Left click to navigate, right click to translate.

inline translation guide

or close

Inline translation is not ready for this page yet.

Inline translation mode.

Share this page with your friends.

The viewport has not loaded.