''V.'' is a satirical postmodern novel and the debut
novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
of
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...
, published on March 18, 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...
sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
with a group of pseudo-
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers.
* Bohemian style, a ...
artists and
hangers-on known as the Whole Sick Crew, and the quest of an aging traveler named Herbert Stencil to identify and locate the mysterious entity he knows only as "V." It was nominated for a
National Book Award
The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...
.
Plot summary
The novel alternates between episodes featuring Benny, Stencil and other members of the Whole Sick Crew (including Profane's sidekick Pig Bodine) in 1956 (with a few minor flashbacks), and a generation-spanning plot that comprises Stencil's attempts to unravel the clues he believes will lead him to "V." (or to the various incarnations thereof). Each of these "Stencilized" chapters is set at a different moment of
historical crisis; the framing narrative involving Stencil, "V.", and the
journals of Stencil's
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
spy/diplomat father threads the sequences together. The novel's two storylines increasingly converge in the last chapters (the intersecting lines forming a V-shape, as it were), as Stencil hires Benny to travel with him to
Malta
Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...
.
Chapter One: "In which Benny Profane, a schlemihl and human yo-yo, gets to an apocheir"
The opening chapter is set in
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. It had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, third-most populous city ...
, on
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas, the festival commemorating nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus. Christmas Day is observance of Christmas by country, observed around the world, and Christma ...
, 1955. Benny Profane, a recently discharged seaman, is at a local sailor bar called the "Sailor's Grave" in which every waitress is named Beatrice and the beer taps are rubber model breasts that the sailors suck on. Here Profane meets Ploy, a short violent sailor, his musician friend Dewey Gland, and the Maltese barmaid Paola Hod. Bar owner Mrs. Buffo begins to play a rendition of "
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", sometimes rendered as "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", is an 1849 poem and Christmas Carol (music), carol written by Edmund Sears, pastor of the American Unitarian Association, Unitarian Church in Wayland, M ...
" to celebrate Christmas only to be immediately assaulted by Ploy and the rest of the intoxicated sailors. The disorder triggers a raid by the military police. Pig Bodine, Paola, Dewey Gland and Profane escape the chaos to Pig's apartment.
Chapter Two: "The Whole Sick Crew"
The chapter opens with Rachel Owlglass confronting the plastic surgeon Shale Schoenmaker whom she accuses of manipulating her friend and roommate Esther Havitz into debt through repeated rhinoplasty. Schoenmaker responds by entering into a monologue on the nature of Jewish women and the nature of appearance.
Section II is set during a party at Rachel's apartment attended by the "Sick Crew", Paola, Esther, and Debb. This section introduces the character Herbert Stencil, a troubled man who is obsessed with his father's mysterious death in Malta (even more mysterious as Sidney Stencil, Herbert's father, was a British secret agent) and the identity of "V", a woman mentioned in his journal.
Chapter Three: "In which Stencil, a quick-change artist, does eight impersonations"
This chapter, set among the British community in
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
toward the end of the 19th century, consists of an introduction and a series of eight relatively short sections, each of them from the point of view of a different person. The eight sections come together to tell a story of murder and intrigue, intersecting the life of a young woman, Victoria Wren, the first incarnation of V. The title is a hint as to how this chapter is to be understood: Stencil imagines each of the eight viewpoints as he reconstructs—we do not know on how much knowledge and how much conjecture—this episode. This chapter is a reworking of Pynchon's short story "Under the Rose", which was first published in
1961
Events January
* January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union.
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...
and is collected in ''
Slow Learner
''Slow Learner'' is the 1984 published collection of five early short stories by the American novelist Thomas Pynchon, originally published in various sources between 1959 and 1964.
The book is also notable for its introduction, written by Pyn ...
'' (
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
). In the ''Slow Learner'' introduction, Pynchon admits he took the details of the setting ("right down to the names of the diplomatic corps") from
Karl Baedeker
Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker ( , ; born Bädeker; 3 November 1801 – 4 October 1859) was a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for authoritative guidebooks for tourists.
Karl Baedeker was descended from a long line ...
's 1899 travel guide for Egypt. Stencil's reconstruction follows the same basic conflict as "Under the Rose", but it gives the non-European characters much more personality.
Chapter Four: In Which Esther Gets a Nose Job
Section I details the history of Shale Schoenmaker, M.D. and how he began his career as a plastic surgeon. During
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
he eagerly enlists in the
A.E.F. hoping to become a pilot but, is instead given a position as an engineer. While serving he witnesses Evan Godolphin, a handsome pilot whom he idealized, become horribly disfigured during an air raid. A month later Schoenmaker visits Godolphin in the hospital while he is recovering from reconstructive surgery, discovering that an incompetent surgeon, Halidom, treated him using the archaic method that would inevitably lead to further disfigurement by infection. This event traumatizes Schoenmaker, causing him to now see it as his mission to help people like Godolphin, a conviction that slowly decays over time.
Stencil comes across Schoenmaker in his search for V. and refers Esther to him for her nose job. At a follow-up appointment Esther and Schoenmaker become lovers.
Chapter Five: In Which Stencil Nearly Goes West with an Alligator
Only marginally part of the Stencil/V. material, this chapter follows Benny and others, as Benny has a job hunting
alligators in the sewers under
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. It figures in the Stencil/V. story in that there is a rat named "Veronica" who figures in a subplot about a mad priest — Father Linus Fairing,
S.J. — some decades back, living in the sewers and preaching to the rats; we hear from him in the form of his diary. Stencil himself makes a brief appearance toward the end of the chapter.
Chapter Six: In which Profane returns to street level
The chapter follows Profane, Geronimo, Angel, and his sister Josephine "Fina" into the city over several nights of drinking. Fina and Profane's relationship develops amid concerns over her status within a local mercenary street gang known as the Playboys, who see her as a spiritual figurehead. The chapter ends amid a massive brawl, nearby which Fina is found lying naked and smiling.
Chapter Seven: She hangs on the western wall
In
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
in 1899, Victoria appears again, briefly, but so does the place name "Vheissu", which may or may not stand for
Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ) is a Somma volcano, somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuv ...
,
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
, a crude interpretation of ''wie heißt du'', translating into ''who are you'' in the German language, or even (one character jokes)
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
. The chapter also revolves around an attempted burglary of Botticelli's ''
The Birth of Venus
''The Birth of Venus'' ( ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus (mythology), Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea ful ...
'' by Hugh Godolphin through the Venezuelan consulate.
Chapter Eight: In which Rachel gets her yo-yo back, Roony sings a song, and Stencil calls on Bloody Chiclitz
The chapter begins with Benny Profane, freshly unemployed after being laid-off from
sewer-alligator hunting, in search of a job in Manhattan. After briefly contemplating the nature of money on a park bench, he, by chance, looks at an advertisement issued by The Time/Space Employment Agency. Once arriving at the agency he finds, much to his annoyance, that the secretary is his former lover Rachel Owlglass. In section IV Stencil continues his investigation of the perplexing "V." (whom he now believes is either Victoria or the rat Veronica) meeting up with a
Yoyodyne engineer Kurt Mondaugen.
Chapter Nine: Mondaugen's story
Kurt Mondaugen, who will appear again in ''
Gravity's Rainbow
''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by the American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In partic ...
'', is the central character in a story set in
South West Africa
South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
(now
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
) partly during a siege in 1922 at which one Vera Meroving is present, but most notably in 1904, during the
Herero Wars
The Herero Wars were a series of colonial wars between the German Empire and the Herero people of German South West Africa (present-day Namibia). They took place between 1904 and 1908.
Background Pre-colonial South-West Africa
The Hereros we ...
, when South West Africa was a German
colony
A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...
.
Chapter Ten: In which various sets of young people get together
McClintic Sphere, an alto sax player in a jazz band, returns home to his boarding house in Harlem. The previous week, spent playing primarily for condescending, snobby Ivy League students, has left him exhausted, and he relaxes in his room with a prostitute named Ruby. Benny, meanwhile, finally gets a job at Anthroresearch Associates, where he's introduced to SHROUD, a synthetic humanoid with whom he holds imaginary conversations. Pig Bodine and Roony Winsome get into a fight, based on Roony's suspicion that Pig is involved with his (Roony's) wife, Mafia. Meanwhile, Mafia aggressively pursues sex with Benny, who declines. Schoenmaker and Esther get into a few arguments because he says he wants to bring out her inner beauty by performing more plastic surgery on her. The chapter finishes out with the Whole Sick Crew hanging out in various places: Sheridan Square, the Rusty Spoon, Slab in front of his Cheese Danish No. 35 canvas. Stencil, looking for Rachel at her apartment, comes upon Paola who gives him the Confessions of Fausto Maijstral.
Chapter Eleven: Confessions of Fausto Maijstral
Fausto Maijstral, Maltese civilian suffering under the German bombardment and working to clear the rubble during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
writes a long letter to his daughter Paola, who figures in the Benny Profane story; the letter comes into Stencil's hands. The letter includes copious quotations from Fausto's diary. Besides the place name
Valletta
Valletta ( ; , ) is the capital city of Malta and one of its 68 Local councils of Malta, council areas. Located between the Grand Harbour to the east and Marsamxett Harbour to the west, its population as of 2021 was 5,157. As Malta’s capital ...
, V. figures in the story as an old — or possibly not-so-old — woman crushed by a beam of a fallen building.
Chapter Twelve: In which things are not so amusing
Roony and Mafia continue fighting, so Roony meets up with McClintic at the V-Note, and they travel to Lenox, Massachusetts. Returning to Matilda's boardinghouse, they meet up with Ruby, who Roony recognizes as being a member of the Crew in disguise. Esther tells Slab she is pregnant. He wants to send her to Cuba to get an abortion, and raises the money by announcing his intentions and asking for money at a party the Crew is throwing in an abandoned warehouse. Roony's attempts to deal with his wife then take a dark turn, but he is saved by Pig. At an airport, Esther and Slab attempt to catch Esther a flight to Cuba, but meet some resistance. Paola, traveling with McClintic, reveals her true identity to him. He delivers the line, "Keep cool, but care," considered the novel's central theme, as they drive off into the Berkshires.
Chapter Thirteen: In which the yo-yo string is revealed as a state of mind
Benny loses his job at Anthroresearch Associates by sleeping in and not being at work to notify the attendant technician that several calamities have occurred in the lab. Rachel nudges him to get a new job, and says that she will find one for him herself. An amusing story unfolds about Benny and Pig during their ''Scaffold'' days. Benny, unable and unwilling to get work, instead takes a self-described vacation and chooses to spend his spare time at the Rusty Spoon. He gets drunk with Stencil, who relates the entirety of his knowledge of V. as it stands to this point in the novel. Valletta being the last place on Stencil's journey to find information about V., he asks Benny to accompany him and Paola to the island. Benny and Stencil commit a robbery in perilous circumstances, and then, in late September, they embark for Malta with Paola on board the ''Susanna Squaducci''.
Chapter Fourteen: V. in love
In this chapter, V. is entranced by a young ballerina, Mélanie l'Heuremaudit. The story centers on a riotous ballet performance, almost certainly modeled in part on the premiere of
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
's ''
The Rite of Spring
''The Rite of Spring'' () is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky ...
''. The performance centers on a virgin sacrifice by impalement. The young ballerina fails to wear her protective equipment and actually dies by impalement in the course of the performance; everyone assumes her death throes simply to be an uncharacteristically emotional performance.
Chapter Fifteen: Sahha
Benny and Pig Bodine have one last adventure with two girls, Flip and Flop, as they all get drunk and wander around Washington D.C.. There are two going away parties for Benny, and the chapter ends with Benny, Stencil, and Paola leaving for Malta aboard the ''Susanna Squaducci'' as the Crew looks on and says goodbye.
Chapter Sixteen: Valletta
As the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
mass on Malta in the early stages of the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
, Stencil arrives with Benny in tow, searching for Fausto Maijstral. (As always,
Kilroy was here
Kilroy was here is a meme that became popular during World War II, typically seen in graffiti. Its origin is debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle became associated with G.I. (military), GIs in the 1940s: a bald-head ...
first, and Pynchon proposes a novel origin for the face: that Kilroy was originally a
schematic
A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a designed representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the key information the sc ...
for part of a
band-pass filter
A band-pass filter or bandpass filter (BPF) is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range and rejects ( attenuates) frequencies outside that range.
It is the inverse of a '' band-stop filter''.
Description
In electronics and s ...
.) While Stencil is able to find Maijstral, he discovers very little from Paola's father and departs without Profane (who stays with Fausto) and Paola (who, after visiting her husband, decides to return to the States).
Epilogue
The last chapter is a flashback to Valletta when Stencil, Sr. was still alive. After World War I he is sent to Malta to observe the various crises going on involving the natives and their desire for independence. He is implored by Maijstral's wife (who is pregnant with Fausto) to relieve him of his duties as a double agent because she fears for his life. Stencil, Sr. meets Veronica Manganese or V and implicitly has sex with her (she is now largely made up of artificial limbs). It is revealed they had trysted in Florence after the riots. He finds out that Maijstral is having an affair with her as well.
Linus Fairing is also working as a double agent for Stencil, and when he leaves for America, having tired of the life of a spy, Stencil's purpose for being in Malta is null.
V releases Stencil from her auspices and Maijstral as well.
Stencil sails off into the Mediterranean and a waterspout blows the ship up into the air, then down into the depths, not too dissimilar from the conclusion of another American masterpiece, ''
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...
'', also a sailor's story.
Characters
Major characters
* Benny Profane – The protagonist and a self-proclaimed human yo-yo
* Rachel Owlglass – An upper-class woman from the affluent Five Towns on the south shore of Long Island
* Herbert Stencil – A troubled Englishman who is obsessed with the identity of "V." a woman who is mentioned in his father's journal written shortly before he disappeared in Malta. Stencil speaks almost exclusively in the
third person
Third person, or third-person, may refer to:
* Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'')
** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person
* Third-person narrative, a perspective in p ...
.
Minor characters
* Clayton "Bloody" Chiclitz, the founder of Yoyodyne Inc.
* Angel – Puerto Rican sewer alligator hunter and friend of Profane
* Fina – Angel's sister, she acts as a saint to the Playboy gang, often quelling disputes between them and other gangs over territory. In chapter six it is heavily implied that she is raped by the same gang.
* Geronimo
* Slab
* Melvin
* Raoul
* Debb Sensay
* Brad
* Roony Winsome
* Mafia Winsome
* Paola Maijstral –
Maltese
Maltese may refer to:
* Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta
* Maltese alphabet
* Maltese cuisine
* Maltese culture
* Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people
* Maltese people, people from Malta or of Maltese ...
immigrant who Profane estimates to be roughly sixteen. Sometime during World War II, Paola marries Pappy Hod to gain entrance to the United States.
* Esther Harvitz – Rachel's Jewish roommate whom Rachel financially supports.
* McClintic Sphere
* Fergus Mixolydian – An "Irish Armenian Jew" and the "laziest living being in Nueva York". Fergus is so lethargic that the only activity that he takes part in excluding television is once a week "to fiddle around at the kitchen sink with dry cells, retorts, alembics, salts solutions."
* Shale Schoenmaker, M.D. – a Jewish plastic surgeon who specializes in
rhinoplasty
Rhinoplasty (, nose + , to shape), commonly called nose job, medically called nasal reconstruction, is a plastic surgery procedure for altering and reconstructing the human nose, nose. There are two types of plastic surgery used – plastic sur ...
. Schoenmaker decides to become a plastic surgeon during World War I while working as an engineer in the Aviation Section. During this time he witnesses pilot Evan Godolphin become disfigured after a mission in which his plane was heavily damaged.
*Dudley Eigenvalue, D.D.S, -- Stencil's dentist and "psychodontist" in whom he confides. Eigenvalue also possesses a prized pair of titanium dentures in a museum display case in his offices.
* Ploy – An engineer on the mine sweeper ''Impulsive''. Standing five feet tall in boots, Ploy has an extremely violent temperament, oftentimes attempting to start fights with the largest sailors. Ten months before the beginning of the first chapter Ploy's teeth are removed by the Navy, being replaced by a pair of dentures. Ploy entertains himself by biting barmaids at the Sailor's Grave on the buttocks.
* Pig Bodine – A perverted member of the Sick Crew. Prior to joining the crew, Bodine was enlisted on the U.S.S. ''Scaffold'' where he operated a pornographic lending library and would write fetish erotica using the ship telegraph. Bodine's knees have the odd ability to lock in place allowing him to effectively sleep while standing, much to the astonishment of the navy physicians.
* Kurt Mondaugen – An engineer who works at Yoyodyne who is interviewed by Stencil.
Analysis and reception
It has been suggested that
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
's novel ''
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight'' was a strong influence on Pynchon. ''V.'' resembles Nabokov's novel in plot, character, narration and style, and the title alludes directly to Nabokov's narrator "V." in ''The Real Life of Sebastian Knight''.
''Time'' wrote "In this sort of book, there is no total to arrive at. Nothing makes any waking sense. But it makes a powerful, deeply disturbing dream sense. Nothing in the book seems to have been thrown in arbitrarily, merely to confuse, as is the case when inept authors work at illusion. Pynchon appears to be indulging in the fine, pre-Freudian luxury of dreams dreamt for the dreaming. The book sails with majesty through caverns measureless to man. What does it mean? Who, finally, is V.? Few books haunt the waking or the sleeping mind, but this is one. Who, indeed?"
Tony Tanner considered the novel an exploration of the plots individuals ascribe to the ambivalent universe they have no choice but to confront, during a 20th-century period in which genuine communication between individuals has been eroded and in which ambiguous societal forces are at work (intentionally or inadvertently) towards a state of entropy; "SHROUD asks, 'Has it occurred to you there may be no more standards for crazy or sane, now that it's started?' And Benny answers, 'What, for Christ's sake?' What the 'it' is that has started (if there is an 'it'), what common process links remote imperialist incidents with contemporary automation, tourism, Hitler, and the Whole Sick Crew (if there is any linking common process)—this is what the whole book is about."
Writing in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', George Plimpton called Pynchon "a young writer of staggering promise", lauding his "vigorous and imaginative style", "robust humor" and "tremendous reservoir of information".
In 1964, the novel was awarded a
William Faulkner Foundation Award for best
debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
.
There is an interesting connection to ''So Many Doors'', a 1951 crime novel written by
Oakley Hall
Oakley Maxwell Hall (July 1, 1920 – May 12, 2008) was an American novelist. He was born in San Diego, California, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and served in the United States Marine Corps, Marines during World War II ...
, an author for whom Pynchon has expressed admiration. In that novel a character named Vasilia Baird is murdered and it is revealed that many suspects knew her only as "V."
Editions
In 2012, it emerged that there were multiple versions of ''V.'' in circulation. This was due to the fact that Pynchon's final modifications were made after the first edition was printed and thus were only implemented in the British, or Jonathan Cape, edition and the Bantam paperback. The fact was forgotten soon after in the U.S., so most US editions, including the newly released eBook, follow the first printing and are therefore unauthorized versions of the text, while the British editions, which follow the first edition printed by Jonathan Cape, contain Pynchon's final revisions.
In popular culture
*The line "Yesterday's headlines blown by the wind" in English rock band
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
's 2003 song
"Scatterbrain" was inspired by a passage from the novel.
*
Mimi and
Richard Fariña
Richard George Fariña (; March 8, 1937 – April 30, 1966) was an American Folk music, folksinger, songwriter, poet and novelist.
Early years and education
Fariña was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, the son of an Irish mother, Ther ...
's 1965 debut album, ''Celebrations for a Grey Day'', includes an instrumental entitled "V." which is linked directly to the novel in the liner notes.
*A suite of songs on the 1969 album ''
Volume Two'' by
Soft Machine
Soft Machine are an English Rock music, rock band from Canterbury, Kent. The band were formed in 1966 by Mike Ratledge, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen and Larry Nowlin. Soft Machine were central in the Canterbury scene; they became o ...
is titled "Esther's Nose Job", referring to Chapter 4: "In which Esther gets a nose job."
*The English band
Benny Profane took their name from Pynchon's character.
[Larkin, Colin:"The Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave Music", 1992, Guinness, ]
*
The Insect Trust's 1970 album ''
Hoboken Saturday Night'' includes the song "Eyes of a New York Woman", with lyrics taken from the novel. The same lyrics form the basis of a different song, "V. in Love", from the album ''Colour Out of Space'' by Favorite Color.
[Music Inspired by the Novels of Thomas Pynchon]
*Alan Moore's ''V for Vendetta
''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (comics), David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing Serial (li ...
'' includes the title character V quoting and reading from Pynchon's book.
*Some aspects of Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson (born June 26, 1970), also known by his initials PTA, is an American filmmaker. Often described as one of the most preeminent writer-directors of his generation, List of awards and nominations received by Paul Thomas Anders ...
's '' The Master'' (2012) are based on ''V.'', such as the protagonist being a discharged sailor and his connection with a cult-like group of individuals.
References
Bibliography
* Grant, J. Kerry. ''A Companion to'' V. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001.
* Herman, Luc, and John Krafft. ''Becoming Pynchon: Genetic Narratology and'' V. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2023.
* Simonetti, Paolo, and Umberto Rossi (eds.). ''Dream Tonight of Peacock's Tails: Essays on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Thomas Pynchon's'' V. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.
External links
''V.'' Wiki @ PynchonWiki.com
''V.'' Cover Art Over Time @ ThomasPynchon.com
{{Authority control
1963 American novels
Novels by Thomas Pynchon
J. B. Lippincott & Co. books
Metafictional novels
Postmodern novels
1963 debut novels