The Religious and Political Vision of Pynchon's against the Day

Abstract

Since V. appeared in 1963, Thomas Pynchon has exemplified American postmodernism, and Against the Day carries on the process of undercutting our ontological assumptions and denying us the stability that would support claims of truth or authenticity. Its 1085 pages, its several hundred characters, and its settings--stretching from Colorado to New Haven to Venice to Siberia--combine to deny us the comfort of mastering this textual mini-world. In its religion and politics, however, this book differs from Pynchon's earlier novels. From V. (1963) through Mason E Against the Day's Webb Traverse is not thus compromised. Pynchon's support--at least within the novel--for violence has been ignored, perhaps because those politics and the religious views do not mesh well with postmodern relativism, possibly because they contradict our previous understanding of Pynchon novels as essentially ambiguous and infinitely complex, and probably because the reviewers do not wish to contemplate either a serious call to violence or a life of penance. His changed sense of what should (and should not) be explicit and unambiguous appears to reflect intensified personal convictions or increased desperation over the direction America is taking. (5) I would like to try to disentangle Pynchon's presentation of religious and political positions in Against the Day, and articulate the vision I understand him to be offering in this novel. Its political program appears to favor attacking industrial infrastructures as the way to slow or derail capitalism, and he intertwines this program with a Christian and often specifically Catholic set of doctrines. (6) If I am correct, for this novel we are no longer dealing with the infinitely scriptible Pynchon, whose many luscious phrases can be arranged to harmonize with most of his readers' ideologies. …