New Pynchon Novel! Part 5

Musing Outloud about Thomas Pynchon's Writing

Welcome back to my round-up of Notes posts on Pynchon’s writing in anticipation of Shadow Ticket coming out Oct 7, 2025.

For a while I went off on a “how to adapt Pynchon” tangent.

Here are my previous daily posts:

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

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Day 25 of new Pynchon novel coming out, a little more about Vineland.

Much is made about the 17 year gap between Gravity’s Rainbow and Vineland (not counting Slow Learner), and I’ve already quoted David Foster Wallace’s “smoked pot and watched television” implied disappointment with the quality of the book after such a wait, but I do think the big reason Vineland “clicked'“ with me w/r/t Pynchon’s use of language is because he became a more mature writer, in two magisteria.

Most importantly, in the transition between his early work and his mid-career work ( Vineland through Against the Day in my measure), he became a family man. All of his later books are more personal about his characters. Now, I’ve always disagreed with the criticism that Pynchon's characters are “cold” or “distant” — that’s just readers struggling with the density. But their relationships are given a more primary, intimate significance.

A pretty good way of saying it is that V. launched his career and Vineland relaunched it. Both center on a missing woman.

But V. Is something of a semiotic mystery novel: V herself has been everywhere, seems to have something to do with everything. Perhaps is not one woman. Perhaps is not even a woman anymore. Perhaps has never been a woman at all. Her absence tears a hole in history.

Frenesi, however, is one woman, a definite singular character with personality, a past, and relationships to the characters. Her absence tears a hole in the hearts of a bunch of people in Vineland, California.

Seems “smaller,” no? This development seems to have disappointed some readers, as the DFW quote indicates (however DFW also turned against David Lynch after Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me so DFW has real “first album was better” issues). But becoming a family man seems to have opened up more heart in Pynchon's novels, and slightly adjusted the endings. The characters still disappear in a fog of confusion… but now one with silver lining?