‘Somber glee at any idea of mass destruction’: history, crisis, and affect in Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon’s approach to writing history is characterised by an acute attention to detail and also careful indirection, particularly when it comes to histories of violence, tragedy, and crisis. Considering three of Pynchon’s works, V., Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, this thesis examines his depictions of these histories, locating in them an affective quality often neglected by Pynchon critics. Understanding these histories affectively means engaging with new modes of interpreting historical information in a post-truth climate—modes that acknowledge the multiplicity and (inter)subjectivity of affective facts.

Each of the three novels is viewed in relation to a specific temporality: past (V.), present (Gravity’s Rainbow) and future (Mason & Dixon). Viewing Pynchon’s works in this way, the thesis argues that the relationship between temporality and subjectivity is distorted by the affective experiences that they evoke and the ways in which individuals manage them. Pynchon’s characteristic use of paranoia is dominant among these modes of affectivity, along with dissociation, libidinal impulse, pre-emption, and prognostication. By applying elements of affect theory to the analysis of Pynchon’s histories, new kinds of textual engagement start to take shape and affect is revealed to be a vital element of the novels’ narrative composition.