New Pynchon novel. What happened to the list?

Sun Mar 29 19:00:55 UTC 2026

Good audiobooks are like being read to by an actor/ actress.

On Sun, Mar 29, 2026 at 10:44 AM Corbeau Castrum via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Audiobooks are my way of getting into the emotions of a story (something
> about the sound over the text, which might make Derrida mad), and I think
> that Eduardo Ballerini does a pretty good job. But nobody can top George
> Guidall or Stefan Rudnicki (especially his work on Ender's Game) in my
> opinion.
>
> I agree the parallels to present day are very clear. One particular line,
> perhaps already mentioned on this listserv (I forget) is an unavoidable
> reference to multiple incestuous photos of Trump and Ivanka: " [...] a back
> issue of Lowlife Gazette, in which Hicks find snapshots of Daphne, early
> adolescence, posing ambiguously on Bruno's lap, each with the same
> self-pleased expression on their kisser. Easy to mistake for the
> imperfectly contained smirking of a girl and a secret lover" (224).
>
> The focus on cheese makes sense if we understand cheese to be slang for
> money, and then we can also slide in Trump's love of yellow and gold.
>
> More generally, there are certain aspects of Shadow Ticket that do feel a
> bit underdone, as if it really was just extras from Against the Day. In
> particular, the jump to Belgrade from Tangier at the beginning of Chapter
> 21, which at first I thought was a printing error since there is literally
> no explanation (unless I missed something) for how Hicks gets from the
> North African coastline to very much inland Balkans—surely we could've been
> treated to some fun autogyro descriptions, or at the very least a token
> sentence explaining that Hicks' journey was uneventful.
>
> There is in fact a review from the Cleveland Review of Books (
> https://clereviewofbooks.com/thomas-pynchon-shadow-ticket-cobi-chiodo-powell/)
> that discusses this very problem, and tries to give Pynchon as generous a
> reading as possible with the suggestion that such absences in the novel
> participate in a more general commentary on how fascism erases narratives
> from history. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>
> Here's to hoping that those rumours (sourced from Jonathan Rosenbaum) of
> another doorstopper are true.
>
> On Sunday, March 29th, 2026 at 03:30, Joseph Tracy via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
> > No thoughts on Shadow Ticket?  No group read? Have the remaining Pynchon
> > fans moved to reddit ?  I have been tentatively listening to the audio
> > version for free through the Library system, contrary to my original
> > instincts and still don't know what I think, but impressive work of
> > genius is not, so far, among the options. Entertaining after a fashion
> > but a lot of the same old, same old.
> >
> > Is anyone else less than thrilled with the new slew of doggerel torch
> > songs with syllables that don't fit any conceivable melody? Does /Shadow
> > Ticket /have too many stereotyped Hollywood movie roles: effete anglos,
> > urban street toughs, hollywood nazis, untrustworthy curvaceous dames?
> > Maybe it's too many acronyms,  too much hollywood-noir dialog. Can't
> > someone in this Pynchon novel talk or think like a real person? Maybe
> > the detailed references to  gun, auto, motorcycle, clothing and jazz
> > arcana have managed to wear out their ability to give us a sense of
> > place and time and are just part of the shtick.  Was he thinking Quentin
> > Tarantino to direct his next movie?  Will Hind Rajab be reanimated by
> > Elon Musk's   trans-human, post-mortem biotechnology  in order to get a
> > starring role as a  secret Nazi collaborator, discovered and located by
> > loyal zionists  and stopped in her deadly attack on innocent Jews in
> > which she used her bullet riddled body to besmirch the heroism of the
> > IDF.  Why this cartoony version of the lead up to WW2? Is it all a set
> > up for some really funny cheese riffs?
> >
> > Somewhere betweeen this paragraph and the next I listened to the last 5
> > or so chapters.
> >
> > Of course there is the revelation near the end of the novel that we are
> > in a different timeline from traditional US history, an alternate
> > universe where the planned Wall street coup against FDR that tried to
> > recruit Smedley Butler for a popular prospective President succeeds, in
> > this case putting General Douglas MacArthur in the presidency as the
> > first POTUS of  a Fascist America.   From this peculiar and ominous
> > divergence one could persuasively derive a  different, more satiric and
> > slant intent, and could  move the events of the novel's  approaching
> > world war to our own time. It wouldn't be that hard actually. Substitute
> > college students demanding an end to bombing hospitals for 1930s union
> > workers demanding wage justice. Substitute violent Fascists at home and
> > in Israel ready to carve out their destiny as empire  and ready to
> > defend the occupying empire to the last Ukrainian, Iraqi, or Iranian, or
> > even throw in American soldiers in a sordid  replay of Normandy with
> > zero element of surprise.
> >
> > The essential trajectory of fascism is to move from industrialized and
> > militarized nationalism to regional or global empires. If you substitute
> > the planting of US or perhaps joint US, Euro, Israeli, South American,
> > Arab and African military bases around the globe supported by compliant
> > nations ( usually military strong men with large Swiss bank accounts)
> > The front lines of the modern techno-reich can easily be swapped  for
> > the WW2 variety of Fascist axis  war machinery and global occupation.
> > Wherever you go there is always someone to scapegoat.  It is easy to see
> > that Palestinians murdered in hospitals and food lines, or immigrants
> > sent to prisons in El Salvador, or racially inferior boat operators in
> > the Caribbean, or a girl's school in Tehran will all do  quite well as
> > the the current version of  Jews Gypsies and Commies. Socialists will do
> > fine  as socialists. Finally, there was no shortage then or now of hired
> > killers,  intensely  loyal either to their imaginary national and racial
> > identity, or to the private sector, or to both, sort of.
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> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
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>