Literary Birthday – 8 May – Thomas Pynchon

Happy Birthday, Thomas Pynchon, born on 8 May 1937.

Thomas Pynchon Quotes

1. The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will.
2. It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.
3. Why should things be easy to understand?
4. Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.
5. Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.
6. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.
7. Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.

Thomas Pynchon is an American literary novelist widely regarded as one of the most influential and enigmatic writers. Notoriously private, he is often described as a recluse, rarely granting interviews or allowing himself to be photographed. He is best known for Gravity’s Rainbow, which won the National Book Award for Fiction and is celebrated for its complexity, dark humour, and experimental style, including elements often associated with slipstream fiction. His other major works, such as The Crying of Lot 49 and Mason & Dixon, reveal his fascination with paranoia, technology, history, and conspiracy. He is frequently cited as a leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Source for Image: English: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Pynchon,_high_school_yearbook_editor,_1953.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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