Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Allusion

by David Cowart, Matthew J. Bruccoli, Harry Thornton Moore

This fresh examination of Pynchon's use of painting, film, music, and literature shows that his true art lies in humanis­tic allusions that stress the possibility of spiritually separating oneself from the modern wasteland.

Cowart disagrees with critics who see Pynchon as a scientist writing about entropy, although Pynchon does illus­trate the nihilistic world for which he is famous in allusions to painting and film, both of which...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809309440
• ISBN13: 9780809309443
• Release Date: April 1980
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Only for those who enjoy intellectual & artistic challenges

This fresh examination of the wide range of Pynchon's works --painting, film, music, and literature-- shows that his true art lies in humanistic allusions that stress the possibility of spiritually separating oneself from the modern wasteland. Written by a literature professor, the point of the book, I believe, is to show that although Pynchon's work depicts contemporary Western culture as destructive & entropic, he also holds an optimism for our ability to escape the traps of the modernist worldview/paradigm.