The Gnostic Pynchon

The appearance of Vineland, his first novel in seventeen years, has rekindled critical debate on Thomas Pynchon. Written before the publication of the new novel, but remarkably prescient about its themes, The Gnostic Pynchon is a provocative reading of Pynchon's work. Where most critics find in Thomas Pynchon a postmodern writer of indeterministic, relativistic, contingent fiction, Dwight Eddins also finds a man on a religious quest. Pynchon's quest, Eddins shows, is for some principle of organic order that will provide an alternative to hopeless ambiguity, or an equally hopeless choice between total chaos and total control. The Gnostic Pynchon is a profoundly revisionist view of one of this century's most important writers. The appearance of "Vineland", his first novel in seventeen years, has rekindled critical debate on Thomas Pynchon. This title shows that Pynchon's quest is for some principle of organic order that will provide an alternative to hopeless ambiguity, or an equally hopeless choice between total chaos and total control.