Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon (EPUB)

Description

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year Spanning the era between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, and constantly moving between locations across the globe (and to a few places not strictly speaking on the map at all), Against the Day unfolds with a phantasmagoria of characters that includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, drug enthusiasts, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, spies, and hired guns. As an era of uncertainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it’s their lives that pursue them.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A ‘shaggy dog’ kennel of a novel with VERY limited Steam Punk/Western genre fiction charms. (5.3/10, WOULD NOT read again):AGAINST THE DAY (2006) is 301 pages longer the MASON & DIXON with no commensurable increase in quality to justify its length. Parodying Cormac McCarthy’s style doesn’t land when littering the page with commas, and in ‘elevated’ passages creates a poor facsimile of HP Lovecraft at his prose purplest. No author is too big to have an editor and whomever it was for AGAINST THE DAY failed a forest’s worth of paper and drained lakes’ worth of ink. Dirigible steam punk explorers, Pinkerton intrigues against MidWest anarchists (and Nikola Tesla tech) — all set ups that have no business being as droll as executed here. This novel was the literary harbinger of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/Bernie Madoff/Lehman Bros Subprime Bailouts to come, Pyramid Scheme Exposition and Serialized Pastiche as an aesthetic. Does Boomer pablum and narrative roadkill sprawl sound worth your time?AGAINST THE DAY’s a tolerable read when dispensing with the subvocalized punctuation pollution in favor of an auctioneer’s reading pace; however, the structural “and then and then” impressionism will remain dementia inducing, and the Baby Boomer self-insert proto-communist apologisms insufferably anachronistic leitmotifs— sharing more stylistic lineage with Das Kapital than In Search of Lost Time is the long and short of it (transparent 4th Wall moral cant degrades verisimilitude, AKA ‘social commentary’). If you find virtuosity on display in AGAINST THE DAY you’ve drank or freebased the snake oil. Poison Control can’t help you now. Grab a cock for Asclepius, because you’ve accepted the Reign of Quantity and signs of the times: tome length pap.Is AGAINST THE DAY amusing or entertaining at least? As much as cud is to cattle— but you could also be chewing on something worth ruminating over . . . The novel does benefit from not being either of its successors – both bigger chores than this at a third the length – and it has literary history interest in context of Pynchon’s project writing from the Civil War through Y2K.CAVEAT LECTOR— If you didn’t stop at MASON & DIXON, here is the last stop before the total qualitative plunge. “If you’re reading, it’s for you.” is the best argument against giving it a chance. But if you go ahead, this is a book that will disabuse you of ‘maximalism’ and the US postmodern novelist cohort for good (for better). Here be Boomers.Some topical alternatives for those that value their time:Absalom, Absalom!, William FaulknerTesla: A Portrait with Masks: A Novel, Vladimir PistaloInventing the Pinkertons, S. Paul O’HaraThe Secret Agent, Joseph ConradThe Demons, DostoyevskyThe Mysterious Island, Jules VerneWhen The Sleeper Wakes, H. G. WellsThe Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthyJR, William GaddisRed Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine , Anne AppelbaumVenona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, John Earl HaynesSleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away, Ann HagedornAtomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan

⭐I should say that I haven’t even finished the book yet, though I’m far enough into it to safely say that I’ve gotten my 20 bucks worth (Amazon’s prices are great on new books, are they not?). All pretension aside, this is quite simply one of the most pleasurable reads I’ve encountered in years. I’ve read reviews both positive and negative, both sides having some valid points. I think the naysaying is a bit unfair. Why rate this wonderful book against some criteria created by Gravity’s Rainbow, or any other book. On it’s own merits, Against the Day is a work of genius.The language is beautiful of course and the plot just dense enough to keep readers hooked. The pages *are* full of some very long sentences, but readers with patience and fortitude will not be disappointed.This is my first Pynchon read and I was apprehensive at first due to the following things I had heard (none true, so far about ATD) about Pynchon:-the language is difficult-the format is confusing/alienatingThese things are not entirely true, from my perspective. After reading the first half of ATD, I can safely say that anyone who’s had a decent run in with the likes of William Faulkner or James Joyce can expect to find no difficulty reading this latest Thomas Pynchon novel.While yes, there are somewhere around 100 notable characters, Pynchon has their lives and behaviors overlapped in such a way that makes them easy to remember. As a reader, I find myself becoming intimately acquainted with many of the characters. Many of them are so dynamic that it really is difficult to determine what exactly is going to happen next, who will next cross who’s path, etc. Many characters are related (larger families like the Traverses and the Vibes account for a large part of the novel’s plot) Characterization is truly an exciting element of the novel and very well done by the author.For the first 100 pages or so, I was wondering if the science-fiction elements that I perceived early on would dominate the novel. While sci-fi doesn’t dominate the novel, Pynchon has created this incredible other-world in which certain characters are able to habitate and many other characters seek fervently. I thought maybe that this would get tired and at least appear tacky, but there’s a heavy mist that covers every inch of fantasy in this book, making things much more mystical and appealing–and after all, the Earth is only so big. Pynchon runs the Earth through a nice big hunk of Iceland Spar and now we as readers are able to enjoy not only the known Earth as setting for ATD, but also some alternate dimensions. All sorts of strange inventions are mentioned (I won’t spoil it for anyone yet to read the book) and many modern physical laws are broken.Historically, the book covers from roughly 1890 to 1920 (roughly, mind you). Some of the details seem pretty well-researched, though it seems also that Pynchon has created certain details with similarity to their actual real-life counterparts, though differing in minor amounts. The regional landscapes are incredibly described. There is very good continuity, with regard to temporal and cultural details.The plot, generally, involves a battling between what I’d call high-capitalism and slippery anarchism.Here are some themes:DoublingDivergenceTime TravelGovernmentBig BusinessHistory/Perception of HistoryElectricity/TechnologyThere’s an extensive Cameo made by Nikola Tesla, which make the book interesting. The book’s first pages include a disclaimer warning that inference to likenesses between characters and real-life figures is discouraged, but this to me almost seems more a flag denoting the opposite. Ultimately, it will be the readers who decide, though it is easy enough to look back in time to see exactly what literary fiction does in terms of sending a message about the world’s state of affairs.Overall, this book exceeded my expectations and has proved to be pleasant reading, rather than the constant challenge (though yes it is challenging from time to time) that I had expected. I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest in literary fiction.

⭐I freely admit I struggled a little with Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon. There were times reading those books when I couldn’t really figure out what was going on. So before reading Against the Day, the Pynchon book I’d enjoyed the most was The Crying of Lot 49. In my opinion, ATD is just as accessible as TCOL49. It’s just so much longer, which equals so much more fun.It’s so filled with great ideas it’s mindblowing. At times you read 10 pages and you feel like there was enough material there for an entire novel. And then it’s onto the next 10 pages.Recently I was reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (clearly influenced by Pynchon). I started off a little overwhelmed by how much reading I had in front of me. Then about 60% of the way through it dawned on me just how damned good the book was and I regretted not really truly savouring the book from the beginning. A similar thing happened to me with Against the Day, but this time with reference to all the Pynchon books I’d previously read. This was the moment that’s going to send me back to read all of them again.

⭐The first reviews of this book observed that few people would probably finish it. They were right. It’s another reminder that Pynchon’s untamed genius would have been more powerful if tamed. Instead, the brilliance is diluted by all the excess verbiage.

⭐Awesome novel by an awesome writer. A proper mind-bender that takes stamina to keep up with but is definitely worth it.

⭐Had never read Pynchon before hearing a chance reference to the brilliance of his prose and boy did this live up to it. Some reviews compare it unfavourably with his older stuff, which I haven’t read. But this vast sprawling wildly surreal epic washed over me like a tidal wave. It’s not remotely like Ulysses – but in a similar way the enjoyment of swimming through its language is as much about the travelling as the destination. The tone is resonantly anti capitalist, and ranges from gripping suspense through erudite humour to the lyrically evocative and the deviantly erotic. And yet the going isn’t as heavy as that all sounds. Though Pynchon is spitting feathers wherever he depicts the brutal exploitation of the have-nots by the haves, much of the time he is giving free rein to a life-affirming & exuberant sense of fun.NB: I bought and enjoyed this on audiobook first and listened to it over six weeks or so – the prose is so dense and resonant that it bears repeated listening. Would warmly recommend it as a way into this novel – Dick Hill’s narration is masterful. On the second time through it was clear that I was still missing so much that I bought the printed book as well.

⭐Wer die Werke von Thomas Pynchon nicht kennt wird es von die Socken hauen.Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. wie er Eigentlich Heist ist wohl der beste Moderne Amerikanische Schriftsteller. Seine werke sind sehr komplex und tiefgehend. Pynchon ist berühmt dafür wie er die Öffentlichkeit meidet. Er gibt nie Interviews, es gibt keine Aktuelle (oder eigentlich gar keine) Fotos von ihm. Sogar bei sein Aufritt in The Simpsons hatte er eine Papiertute über sein Kopf.Ich lernte ihm kennen durch Gravity’s Rainbow und braucht ein par Ansätze bevor ich den schaffte. Es ist keine leichte Kost.Against the Day ist etwas Zugänglicher, aber auch nur ein wenig. Mit 1.085 Seiten in der Englischen HC Ausgabe ist es der bisher längste Pynchon Roman. Die Geschichte ist Halluzinant und Abgedreht, Komplex und hat sehr viele Figuren. Sie spielt zwischen 1893 und kurz nach dem ersten Weltkrieg. Ich bin ehrlich gesagt nicht in der Lage eine kurze Zusammenfassung zu schreiben der das Buch auch nur ein kleines bisschen recht tun wurden.Einzige was ich sagen kann ist, wer eine literarischen Marathon, oder lieber gesagt, 7 Marathons in 7 tagen lesen will kann ich dieses Buch von Herzen empfehlen.Ich hab es in Hard Cover und als Audio Buch, beides sind sehr gut.Das Hardcover ist nicht nur hardcover es ist auch echt gebunden.

⭐Not found.

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