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On the Line of Flight: Pynchon's Entropy Machine

Author: Dan O'Hara (Christ Church, Oxford University)

  • On the Line of Flight: Pynchon's Entropy Machine

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    On the Line of Flight: Pynchon's Entropy Machine

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Abstract

Pynchon's fictions have, since 1959, been a document of the cybernetic age. Well before Donna Haraway dreamed of the cyborg, Pynchon was expressing the concern she later voiced so well, that "Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert" (152). Somehow, though, the ambivalence of Pynchon's ethical position, of all things, has deterred critics from examining his textual machines; an aversion to the slightest suggestion of post-carbon life turns the machines into demons.

How to Cite:

O'Hara, D., (1994) “On the Line of Flight: Pynchon's Entropy Machine”, Pynchon Notes , 56-69. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.198

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Published on
1994-09-22