AGAINST THE DAY Salem Press（对萨勒姆出版社的那一天）.pdfVIP

18 AGAINST THE DAY Author: Thomas Pynchon (1939- ) Publisher: Penguin Press (New York). 1,085 pp. $35.00 Type of work: Novel Time: 1893 to the early 1920’s Locale: The United States, Europe, Mexico, Shambhala, and the Center of the Earth Pynchon’s first novel in nearly a decade, and his lon- gest, offers a fictional counterculture history of the West- ern world immediately before and after World War I Principal characters: Lew Basnight, a “psychical” private detective Randolph St. Cosmo, the commander of the sky ship Inconvenience Yashmeen Halfcourt, a mathematician working with a group of Lon- don Pythagoreans Deuce Kindred, a hired gun who kills Webb Traverse then marries his daughter Webb Traverse, a miner, labor organizer, and “anarchist” Frank Traverse, Webb’s son, a mining engineer Kit Traverse, Webb’s brilliant son, sent to Yale by Scarsdale Vibe Reef Traverse, Webb’s ne’er-do-well son Lake Traverse, Webb’s daughter, marries her father’s killer Scarsdale Vibe, a capitalist mine owner who orders the death of Webb Traverse Natalia Eskimoff, a medium Penny Black, an aviatrix Darby Suckling, the Chums of Chance ship’s “mascotte” Everything that Thomas Pynchon’s critics have loved about his first five novels is in his sixth, Against the Day . Everything that his critics have hated about his novels is there, too. Both lists usually contain the same four or five items. The novels sprawl; at 1,085 pages,Against the Day is longer than any of its lengthy predecessors. They con- tain countless chara