Book contents
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Times and Places
- Part II Culture, Politics, and Society
- Chapter 14 Family
- Chapter 15 Sex and Gender
- Chapter 16 Humor
- Chapter 17 Popular Culture
- Chapter 18 Music and Sound
- Chapter 19 Film and Television
- Chapter 20 Real Estate and the Internet
- Chapter 21 Politics and Counterculture
- Chapter 22 Drugs and Hippies
- Chapter 23 Ecology and the Environment
- Chapter 24 Capitalism and Class
- Chapter 25 War and Power
- Chapter 26 Conspiracy and Paranoia
- Chapter 27 Terror and Anarchy
- Chapter 28 Science and Technology
- Chapter 29 Mathematics
- Chapter 30 Time and Relativity
- Chapter 31 Philosophy
- Chapter 32 Religion and Spirituality
- Chapter 33 Death and Afterlife
- Part III Approaches and Readings
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 24 - Capitalism and Class
from Part II - Culture, Politics, and Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2019
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Times and Places
- Part II Culture, Politics, and Society
- Chapter 14 Family
- Chapter 15 Sex and Gender
- Chapter 16 Humor
- Chapter 17 Popular Culture
- Chapter 18 Music and Sound
- Chapter 19 Film and Television
- Chapter 20 Real Estate and the Internet
- Chapter 21 Politics and Counterculture
- Chapter 22 Drugs and Hippies
- Chapter 23 Ecology and the Environment
- Chapter 24 Capitalism and Class
- Chapter 25 War and Power
- Chapter 26 Conspiracy and Paranoia
- Chapter 27 Terror and Anarchy
- Chapter 28 Science and Technology
- Chapter 29 Mathematics
- Chapter 30 Time and Relativity
- Chapter 31 Philosophy
- Chapter 32 Religion and Spirituality
- Chapter 33 Death and Afterlife
- Part III Approaches and Readings
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
“Groundhog sweat, misery and early graves”: Such is Darby Suckling’s description in Against the Day (2006) of what the “prodigious American economy” promises workers (AD 1033). Suckling summarizes the destruction and dehumanization Pynchon finds in capitalist operations, whether his subject is the ecological impact of the Slothrop Paper Company in Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), the abuse of miners in Against the Day or the machinations of Internet entrepreneurs in Bleeding Edge (2013). Whether globalized and virtual or aiming to extract old-fashioned natural resources, capitalism is an innately imperial and colonizing force for Pynchon: Defense contractors’ and other companies’ collusion with fascistic governments were a major target in his early career, and from the 1960s to the 2010s he has also been deeply critical of the capitalist impulse to convert wilderness and communal space into real estate, from Mason and Dixon’s original boundary-drawing to the land-owning moguls of The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Inherent Vice (2009). DeepArcher in Bleeding Edge, though made of pixels, becomes one more landscape for co-opting as well, just like super-rich Manhattan.
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- Thomas Pynchon in Context , pp. 195 - 202Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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