Abstract

The nature of Thomas Pynchon's fiction has encouraged a serial view of his texts as being sequentially organized by some concatenative V-effect, from the first novel, V. (or "V1 "), then, momentarily omitting The Crying of Lot 49, to the centrality of V-2 rockets in Gravity's Rainbow, and, nearer us and nearer "home" (its final word), to Vineland as "V3" and a more nostalgic fresco of an allegorized proto-America (Vinland was the name given to the American continent sighted by the Vikings in the tenth century). But each time, a different estrangement takes place, according to a variable V-effect, or Pynchon's version of the Brechtian V[erfremdungs]-Effekt.

How to Cite:

Milesi, L., (1998) “Postmodern Ana-Apocalyptics: Pynchon's V-Effect and the End (of Our Century)”, Pynchon Notes , 213-243. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.150