Tom Le Clair's review

[Mark Kohut]

Also, once again....P's late style is so F'in' youthful, other writers'
straining for jocularity, putting on paper the top layer of
pure (and impure) wit.....

V and Lot 49 and GR are of course his similar style but so serious too
...from the beginning....but I'm only at chapter 5...

On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 1:01 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Once again, Bloom and Nabokov speak to reading Pynchon: There is no
> reading only rereading....
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 12:53 PM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Pretty scathing and mean-spirited, but probably on point.
>>
>> I think the advent of the internet struck a blow to Pynchon's style. The
>> obscure facts, crazy connections and aura of conspiracy that showcased his
>> dogged research skills and made his first three books so fun and seductive
>> are now available to the masses. You can read the old Baedekers online.
>> Got
>> a conspiracy theory? Take a number.
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 11:39 AM Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon — Open Letters Review
>> > <https://openlettersreview.com/posts/shadow-ticket-by-thomas-pynchon>
>> >
>> > Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon
>> >
>> > Shadow Ticket
>> >
>> > By Thomas Pynchon
>> >
>> > Penguin, 2025
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > With me, Pynchon is personal.  I’ve been reading him for more than five
>> > decades.  His *Gravity’s Rainbow* reformatted my brain and became the
>> novel
>> > against which I have judged, probably unfairly, all new fiction.  So
>> please
>> > pardon this unusually personal (and long) review of his new novel
>> *Shadow
>> > Ticket*.
>> >
>> > *Gravity’s Rainbow* is what I call a “monsterpiece”: a very long,
>> profound
>> > and masterful work that some readers consider a monstrosity because of
>> its
>> > genre mashing, formal idiosyncracies, and stylistic excesses.  I used
>> the
>> > term when reviewing Olga Tokarczuk’s *The Books of Jacob* in these pages
>> > and should have used it when I wrote about *Gravity’s Rainbow* at 50,
>> also
>> > here.  Of all novels written by Americans since World War II, *Gravity’s
>> > Rainbow* is the grandest monsterpiece, the twentieth century’s
>> *Moby-Dick*,
>> > both the monster whale and Melville’s monstrous novel.
>> >
>> > *Shadow Ticket* is no monsterpiece.  Not even close.  Once rumored to be
>> > long, it is 293 pages.  It has no monsters within it, and it’s not a
>> > creative monstrosity, some new or even old Pynchonian deformation of
>> > conventional narrative.  *Shadow Ticket* coasts merrily along in its
>> > detective genre, linear like the gumshoe story *Inherent Vice* but with
>> > historical settings, first Depression America and then Eastern Europe 93
>> > years ago.  At 88, Pynchon is himself almost historical, and *Shadow
>> > Ticket* is
>> > his ninth novel.  Maybe he just wanted to have some fun in what may be
>> his
>> > final book.  But he wasn’t free for fun.  Having published two
>> > monsterpieces—*Gravity’s Rainbow* and *Mason & Dixon* — Pynchon had
>> created
>> > expectations or desires or wishes in his readers.  This one hoped that
>> he
>> > would go out with a deep dive into the deep state, even if his book
>> > imploded like that submersible descending toward the *Titanic* this
>> spring.
>> >
>> > I should have known better, because in *Bleeding Edge* Pynchon trolled
>> me
>> > for just such a hope of depth.  This professor was pleased to be
>> noticed by
>> > the master but also disappointed.  Here’s a description from my review
>> of
>> > the novel:
>> >
>> > “At the beginning of *Bleeding Edge* a documentary filmmaker named Reg
>> > Despard abruptly zooms in and out on scenes, causing viewers cognitive
>> > dissonance.  Pynchon makes fun of an academic who submits Despard’s
>> work to
>> > Brechtian analysis and who praises his film for its `leading edge’
>> > post-postmodernism.  I praised a similar scene of disorienting zooming
>> > in *Gravity’s
>> > Rainbow* as a metaphor for the Brechtian alienation effects of that
>> novel’s
>> > `epic theater’ in my book *The Art of Excess*.  Foolish me.  Later in
>> > *Bleeding
>> > Edge*, Despard says he just shoots what is in front of him and intends
>> `no
>> > deeper meaning.’”
>> >
>> > Although *Bleeding Edge* includes a “DeepArcher” website down in the
>> “Deep
>> > Web,” Pynchon was mostly shooting what was in front of him, another
>> > investigator on the streets with eccentrics and hustlers in New York
>> City
>> > in 2001.  The fall of the Trade Towers had little effect on the novel.
>> > *Bleeding
>> > Edge* lacked the usual Pynchon hard edge as well as depth.  In my
>> review, I
>> > speculated that one source of Pynchon’s earlier authority and depth as a
>> > novelist was his ability to occupy and revision historical periods, as
>> he
>> > does in his two monsterpieces and in *Against the Day*, his longest
>> novel.
>> > In *Shadow Ticket* his mix of historical research and wacky invention
>> (one
>> > never knows which is which) makes it more substantial than the
>> > contemporary *Inherent
>> > Vice*, but this new detective plot offers no cognitive dissonance, no
>> > monstrosity disorientation.  As one of many walk-on characters says to
>> the
>> > obtuse Private Investigator protagonist, “Leave the deep thinking to
>> others
>> > and get on with the action.”
>> >
>> > Although the action and the P.I. in *Shadow Ticket* do move from
>> Milwaukee
>> > to several European countries, the innocent (or guilty) abroad is
>> familiar
>> > from many Pynchon novels all the way back to his first, *V.*  As usual,
>> his
>> > characters have fanciful names.  They could be an alienation effect, I
>> > suppose, but they don’t push the reader to think about the people and
>> > politics—the purpose of Brecht’s alienation effects.  The characters
>> often
>> > talk about the movies of the time, and many of the characters seem
>> > satisfied with playing familiar cinematic roles (the dangerous broad,
>> the
>> > sentimental sap).  They speak then contemporary slang and have old-movie
>> > repartee, which must have been fun for Pynchon to write, a challenge
>> like
>> > the 18th-century British English of Mason and Dixon.  Because point of
>> view
>> > is the usual Pynchonian selective omniscience, he’s free to do whatever
>> he
>> > wants, sometimes bandying, sometimes brooding.
>> >
>> > Near the end of *Gravity’s Rainbow* there’s an odd parenthetical
>> passage in
>> > which a voice sounds like a novelist talking to his publisher: “I know
>> what
>> > your editors want, exactly what they want” — a plot that can be
>> > outlined.  *Shadow
>> > Ticket* has one, and here it is:
>> >
>> > In Depression and Prohibition Milwaukee, Hicks McTaggart, a slab of a
>> man
>> > even more dense than that “tanker” Tyrone Slothrop of *Gravity’s
>> Rainbow*,
>> > works busting heads at union strikes.  After he believes he has almost
>> > killed a man, Hicks decides to become a P.I. and is tutored by Lew
>> > Basnight, a detective in *Against the Day*.  Hicks works for, it
>> appears, a
>> > nationwide and maybe even worldwide detective firm called U-Ops.
>> Mostly,
>> > though, Pynchon has him hanging around speaks, talking with the usual
>> crew
>> > of Pynchon oddballs, and keeping an eye out for attractive women. Hicks
>> has
>> > a part-time (and two-timing) girlfriend who worries about him because he
>> > seems threatened by the Mafia, early-adopting American Nazis, and the
>> > federal government. But the first half of *Shadow Ticket *is low energy
>> > hugger mugger until Hicks rescues one Daphne Airmont, the 20-something
>> > daughter of the millionaire cheese baron Bruno Airmont who, suspected of
>> > financial crimes, has disappeared.
>> >
>> > In the second half of the novel, Hicks is dispatched to Europe to bring
>> > Daphne, now keeping company with a swing musician, back to America.
>> > Although Hicks several times crosses paths with Daphne, he is reluctant
>> to
>> > pressure her back to the States. He also meets Bruno, the “Big Cheese”
>> of
>> > cheese, but doesn’t try to turn him in.  Hicks has gone native in what
>> he
>> > feels is a culture more permissive than Milwaukee.  If you need an
>> earlier
>> > avatar, think Lambert Strether in *The Ambassadors*.
>> >
>> > In the last fifty or so pages, Pynchon thankfully diminishes Hicks’
>> role,
>> > and the novel’s focus scatters among characters of different
>> nationalities
>> > with various political loyalties and motives.  These figures include,
>> but
>> > are not limited to, Bolsheviks, Nazis, British spies, and motorcycle
>> > enthusiasts. The scenes in the final pages of *Shadow Ticket* resemble
>> the
>> > chaotic “Zone” in *Gravity’s Rainbow*, but, unlike this new novel, it
>> had a
>> > few well-developed characters to balance the frequently unbalanced folks
>> > wandering across the Zone’s downed or disputed borders at the end of
>> World
>> > War II.
>> >
>> > To really have something substantial in common with Pynchon’s
>> > boundary-crossing monsterpieces, *Shadow Ticket* needed to be much
>> longer.
>> > This reviewer, now posing as a renegade “editor,” wants the author to
>> halve
>> > the American expository half, triple the length of the European action
>> > half, provide some backstories for the many characters, reduce the
>> > coincidental meets and miracle rescues by air, keep the talking golem if
>> > necessary, start with cheesehead comedy and transition to the kinds of
>> > serious political intrigues that led to World War II (and to *Gravity’s
>> > Rainbow*).  At the very end of *Shadow Ticket*, a submarine captain
>> > describes “an urge more ancient than anything he knows of to go deeper,
>> to
>> > descend, rivets creaking, into depths legendary.”  This doesn’t happen
>> in
>> > or with the novel.
>> >
>> > The changes I’ve “recommended” would have made *Shadow Ticket* more
>> > artistically monstrous, and the novel would also have fruitfully
>> resembled
>> > a non-Pynchon monsterpiece about the same space and time, William
>> > Vollmann’s National Book Award novel *Europe Central*.  In addition,
>> > Pynchon’s title would have gained density.  A “ticket” is the word used
>> by
>> > P.I.’s to refer to a case or assignment.  Hicks’ ticket is initially
>> > straightforward, but it changes and leads readers into the unfamiliar
>> > shadowland depicted in the novel’s last pages.  Unfortunately, the too
>> > numerous characters in this novel’s abbreviated Zone are like the
>> shadows
>> > on the wall in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.”
>> >
>> > Maybe the octogenarian Pynchon wanted what predictable editors and many
>> > readers want.  Or he didn’t have the time or energy for—or, of course,
>> > interest in—transforming his surface-skimming detective story into
>> > something “deeper,” to use the operative word here.  If you’re a fan of
>> > Pynchon, you’ll probably want to read *Shadow Ticket*.  But be warned.
>> You
>> > will find that what might be clever or funny inventions to newbies are
>> > sometimes shadows of earlier Pynchon materials.  Most of the following
>> > examples are from *Gravity’s Rainbow* where Pynchon suggested that
>> objects
>> > are alive and have souls.  In *Shadow Ticket* it is cheese and
>> > motorcycles.  The “They” of *Gravity’s Rainbow *reappear, as do the
>> Tarot
>> > deck and the assertion that information is more valuable than money.
>> > Slothrop quests for the killer rocket 00000.  Hicks searches for the
>> most
>> > tasteless lamp ever invented. “Nothing so loathsome as a Sentimental
>> > Surrealist,” says Pynchon in *Gravity’s Rainbow*, but the word
>> > “sentimental” is all over the text of *Shadow Ticket*. When Slothrop is
>> > confused, he stutters words beginning with “a.”  Now Hicks has that tic.
>> > There are an outlaw submarine, pet pig, and a bomb thrown into water in
>> > both *Gravity’s Rainbow* and *Shadow Ticket*. We have songs again, along
>> > with cute meets and witty kiss-offs.  *Vineland* and *Mason & Dixon*
>> have
>> > “mopery.”  Now it’s “aggravated mopery.”
>> >
>> > Pynchon has a long bit in *Shadow Ticket* about asports and apports,
>> > disappearances and reappearances during séances.  Perhaps he was aware
>> of
>> > familiar materials reappearing in the novel, and they became part of the
>> > fun, possibly some winking self-reference for the delectation of his
>> fans.
>> > Or maybe he forgot what he had imagined earlier.  For me, who believes
>> > fiction should defamiliarize, the reappearances and repetitions were
>> not so
>> > much fun as sad. The sociologist Max Weber, a probable influence on
>> > *Gravity’s
>> > Rainbow*, would have called Pynchon’s refamiliarization “the
>> routinization
>> > of charisma.”
>> >
>> > Even the supposed mastermind villain of *Shadow Ticket* is short on
>> > charisma. A pop up character describes Bruno Airmont as a “deep
>> desperado,”
>> > but he’s no monster.  Arguing with her lover about her father, Daphne
>> says
>> > he’s like a fake “monster in the Tunnel of Love,” maybe guilty of
>> “family
>> > crimes, bad blood” but no outsized threat.  Gaining a monopoly on cheese
>> > production doesn’t compare with Hitler’s rocket technology that a
>> character
>> > calls “a monster by the tail” in *Gravity’s Rainbow*.  Novels don’t
>> have to
>> > use the word “monster” to become monsterpieces.  I quote Daphne on
>> Bruno to
>> > suggest the low stakes of the action in *Shadow Ticket*, the limitation
>> of
>> > much of the novel’s purview to the personal, “evil” as a bug in an
>> > individual not a feature of the cultural systems that Pynchon
>> anatomized in
>> > his monsterpieces.
>> >
>> > I was admittedly sketchy describing the plot of *Shadow Ticket* because
>> the
>> > story and characters elicited little intellectual engagement, and the
>> novel
>> > caused me no fear.  “Paranoia” is the psychological term most often
>> > associated with Pynchons’s work, but I prefer “fear.”  I had no fear
>> that
>> > “horrors” (such as a gross movie about food) in *Shadow Ticket* could
>> > impinge on my life and no fear that I would be mystified by *Shadow
>> > Ticket* when
>> > finished reading.  Because of my tepid response to the book, my
>> attention
>> > turned to its author: why write this novel?
>> >
>> > Since almost nothing is known about Pynchon the author or man, one is
>> > forced to speculate—as one would about the meanings of his novel were
>> it a
>> > monsterpiece.  Although reportedly tall and self-conscious about his
>> > appearance, Pynchon is no monster.  Not even an “art monster.”  I know
>> > someone who had dinner with him.  They talked about New York real
>> estate.
>> > The genre limitations and frequent repetitions in *Shadow Ticket* have
>> me
>> > thinking of the author as an organ grinder that one still sees in
>> tourist
>> > areas of European cities.  Organ grinders are usually older men who
>> dress
>> > up in period costumes and push through the streets the machines from
>> which
>> > they crank out over and over a small repertoire of simple, familiar, and
>> > entertaining tunes. The organ grinders I’ve watched appear to revel in
>> the
>> > pleasure that their audiences display, even if it’s the pleasure of
>> > witnessing an amusing anachronism rather than the pleasure of listening
>> to
>> > tortured music.  So maybe my initial notion—that Pynchon just wanted to
>> > have (and maybe give) fun—is not so far off, and readers should enjoy
>> one
>> > last turn of the crank for what it is.  I would if I could, but the
>> descent
>> > from *Gravity’s Rainbow* to *Shadow Ticket* is too steep and deep for
>> me.
>> > I wanted Pynchon to remain a crank, a writer willing to take original or
>> > crazed ideas to and even beyond their aesthetic limits.
>> >
>> > Two other authors of monsterpieces who are often associated with
>> > Pynchon—William Gaddis and Don DeLillo—also wrote short final books.
>> > Gaddis’s *Agape Agape* was partly about the player piano and Americans’
>> > lust for entertainment.  DeLillo’s *The Silence* was partly about
>> > television and that same lust updated.   In old age, the novelists
>> attacked
>> > machine-delivered popular “art.”  Because Pynchon keeps cranking,
>> *Shadow
>> > Ticket* ultimately suggested to me a motive and explanation deeper and
>> > bleaker than having fun.  In Russell Banks’s last novel *Foregone*, the
>> > terminally ill filmmaker/narrator keeps going on and on and on for a
>> > documentary film crew because, he says, telling his story keeps him
>> alive.
>> > With Banks in mind, I wonder if Pynchon keeps writing to keep writing to
>> > keep living, doing what he has been doing all those decades he was never
>> > seen in public.  Keeps writing in *Shadow Ticket* a similar story with
>> some
>> > of the same materials.
>> >
>> > Banks’s protagonist dies.  In *Shadow Ticket* no major character dies,
>> and
>> > there’s no conclusive end to the story. Yes, the deaths of millions are
>> > foreshadowed with the rise of Hitler, but they are in the novel’s
>> future.
>> > Like Slothrop, Hicks keeps averting death in the present. In *Gravity’s
>> > Rainbow* millions had already died, and in the first line, “A screaming
>> > comes across the sky,” we have the sound of future deaths, our deaths
>> > launched from afar.  There is no screaming in *Shadow Ticket*, just the
>> > repetitive and simple music of the organ grinder cranking on and on,
>> > dodging that final ticket to what he usually calls the “Other Side.”  I
>> > think it’s not an idle rhyme to say, “No death, no depth.”
>> >
>> > Organ grinders in earlier times were sometimes given money to stop
>> playing,
>> > to move on.  I’m glad you are still here with us, Thomas Pynchon, but
>> you
>> > have written two monsterpieces.  You have done more masterful work than
>> any
>> > of your contemporaries.  Now you can stop.
>> >
>> > *Tom LeClair is the author of two critical books, two volumes of essays,
>> > and eight novels.  At 81, he keeps on writing reviews.*
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>