Book contents
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Times and Places
- Part II Culture, Politics, and Society
- Chapter 14 Family
- Chapter 15 Sex and Gender
- Chapter 16 Humor
- Chapter 17 Popular Culture
- Chapter 18 Music and Sound
- Chapter 19 Film and Television
- Chapter 20 Real Estate and the Internet
- Chapter 21 Politics and Counterculture
- Chapter 22 Drugs and Hippies
- Chapter 23 Ecology and the Environment
- Chapter 24 Capitalism and Class
- Chapter 25 War and Power
- Chapter 26 Conspiracy and Paranoia
- Chapter 27 Terror and Anarchy
- Chapter 28 Science and Technology
- Chapter 29 Mathematics
- Chapter 30 Time and Relativity
- Chapter 31 Philosophy
- Chapter 32 Religion and Spirituality
- Chapter 33 Death and Afterlife
- Part III Approaches and Readings
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 20 - Real Estate and the Internet
from Part II - Culture, Politics, and Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2019
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Thomas Pynchon in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Times and Places
- Part II Culture, Politics, and Society
- Chapter 14 Family
- Chapter 15 Sex and Gender
- Chapter 16 Humor
- Chapter 17 Popular Culture
- Chapter 18 Music and Sound
- Chapter 19 Film and Television
- Chapter 20 Real Estate and the Internet
- Chapter 21 Politics and Counterculture
- Chapter 22 Drugs and Hippies
- Chapter 23 Ecology and the Environment
- Chapter 24 Capitalism and Class
- Chapter 25 War and Power
- Chapter 26 Conspiracy and Paranoia
- Chapter 27 Terror and Anarchy
- Chapter 28 Science and Technology
- Chapter 29 Mathematics
- Chapter 30 Time and Relativity
- Chapter 31 Philosophy
- Chapter 32 Religion and Spirituality
- Chapter 33 Death and Afterlife
- Part III Approaches and Readings
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
A famous image from The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) – in which Oedipa Maas compares the concealed communication of a suburban “sprawl of houses” to that of a “printed circuit” board (CL 24) – sets the tone for Thomas Pynchon’s writing on real estate as much as on computing. Both these fields have grown during Pynchon’s writing career; both have come to represent systems of control throughout his writing. In his latest novel, Bleeding Edge (2013), real estate and urban planning along with the integration of computing into personal and relational spaces reappear, two twenty-first-century digital natives (sons of the female protagonist Maxine Tarnow) merging the fields at a deeper level than Oedipa’s superficial pattern recognition had done. In Pynchon’s latest analysis of human agency, both urban planning and IT infrastructure remain central; they become either loci of control, contested spaces, or places of resistance, depending on who builds, buys, uses, or reclaims the city – be it real or virtual.
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- Thomas Pynchon in Context , pp. 162 - 171Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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