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The roots and history of the Pynchon family since the 17th century, and its relationship to the history of the United States (up till the Wall Street crash and Pynchon & Co. 'ignominiously' going under) forms a first, historical framework in mr. Pynchon's work. The literary (but not personal) Nabokov-Pynchon connection gives a clue to the stylistic devices mr. Pynchon will develop. This is a second, literary framework. And there's mr. Pynchon's friendship with Richard Fariña, which connects him with the highly politicized period of the end of the '50s, early '60s. This is the last and political framework of his work.
These three frameworks together explain, according to mr. Charles Hollander, even from the very beginning of mr. Pynchon's literary career, what he writes about, and how he writes.
vheissu is proud to present the most important articles of Charles Hollander up till now. Furthermore, he gave permission to put online a small biographical annotation, a shorter study on the meaning of certain jokes and puns in Gravity's Rainbow, and a very recent lecture on Dante as Pynchon's main influence (the last one unpublished). It is a mystery to vheissu why his articles are sometimes meeting such hostile reactions. But after all, in Charles Hollander's own words: "I am a terrible 'I tole ya so'."
[+] Charles Hollander, Pynchon's
Politics: The Presence of an Absence
originally published in: Pynchon Notes, 26-27, spring-fall 1990,
pp. 5-59 — (size: 166k).
This article takes —after studying into detail the different frameworks— a
closer look at the early work, including a discussion of 'A Journey Into
the Mind of Watts'
[+] Charles Hollander, Pynchon,
JFK and the CIA: Magic Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49
originally published in: Pynchon Notes, 40-41 (spring-fall 1997,
pp. 61-106) — (size: 138k).
Mr. Hollander decodes the 'underside' of The Crying of Lot 49, and holds
as central proposition that the novel is about the Kennedy assassination,
'albeit written in deep code'. Contains maybe the most interesting analysis
of 'The Courier's Tragedy' to date.
[+] Charles Hollander, Abrams
Remembers Pynchon
originally published in: Pynchon Notes, 36-39 (1995-1996, pp.
179-180) — size: 7k.
Former Cornell professor Mike Abrams, about Thomas Pynchon as a brilliant
student.
[+] Charles
Hollander, Thomas Pynchon: An American Dante?
An article proposed during the International Pynchon Conference in
Malta, June, 2004; expanded and with Notes and Bibliography to be
published in a forthcoming issue of Pynchon Notes — currently it
has a size of 34k.
Is Dante and his Divine Comedy the main literary Pynchon influence?
[+] Charles
Hollander, Jokes and Puns in Gravity's Rainbow
originally published in: Pynchon Notes, 46-49 (2000-2001) — size:
14k
An illustration of how Thomas Pynchon uses misdirection and other stylistical
devices. Chuck expanded this article and it is here.
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