New Pynchon Essay in 'Current Affairs'

[J Tracy]

Thanks for posting that article. It is the 2nd review that makes me want to consider reading the novel.  (I have read all the other novels at least twice)I certainly agree with the writer’s proposition that Pynchon has throughout his career been writing scathing satire about the ways fascism takes hold in modern societies through the allure of technological control and self exaltation. and  how that pairs with the predatory nature of capitalism. His depth in this pursuit is formidable reaching from the enlightenment to the present  His novels are full of conspiracies( plans involving more than one person to break laws), and particularly  activities and killings to foil investigations into criminal conspiracies or to stop  political action against these enterprises or just to kill off locals in a colonial project.

All that and more in a wildly entertaining form: humor, the weird, adventure, other dimensions, provocative ideas..the works.
  Some try to deny Pynchon’s preoccupation with the dangers of conspiracies- private, religious and political and how these supremacist paranoid visions spread and mirror each other in different societies including America. To enter the lively fictional space Pynchon creates lets us vicariously feel how systems of control rob us of private freedoms and pleasures,  and ultimately push humans toward sacrificial death cults and self absorbed careerism. His alternate trajectory leads to fun, bad mistakes,  adventures of resistance, love, mystery, suffering, friendship  inner change.






> On Feb 16, 2026, at 6:11 PM, jgrant3919--- via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> 
> https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/thomas-pynchon-saw-american-fascism-coming
> 
> 
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> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
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