Present Subjunctive: Pynchon's California Novels

Abstract

This article argues that the setting of Thomas Pynchon's “California novels” allows him to explore concerns that inform all of his work in a less determined, and thus ultimately less pessimistic, way. Although his longer works are all set amid recognizable historical crises whose outcomes we generally know, the setting of the California novels contributes to an emphasis in these novels on the “subjunctive” voice of history.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 56 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.