Pynchon and History : Metahistorical Rhetoric and Postmodern Narrative Form in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon

Addressing a distinct gap in the field, Shawn Smith explores Pynchon as a historical novelist and thinker.

Interpreting Pynchon's four major novels: "V.", "Gravity's Rainbow", "Vineland" and" Mason & Dixon", he argues that what we call the postmodern characteristics of Thomas Pynchon's narrative technique are rhetorical arguments, expressed through the forms of his texts, for Pynchon's philosophy of what twentieth century history has meant, as well as a rhetorical commentary on the problems of historiographic representation. Focusing on Pynchon as a historical novelist, as well as a writer with complex ideas on both historiographic representation and how historical knowledge develops and is communicated, this book's fresh approach makes it invaluable to Pynchon scholars and students of postmodern fiction.