Arts and Humanities Research Council Funding Application
Name of applicant: Martin Paul Eve
Title of degree programme: D.Phil in English Literature
Over the course of a three year project I intend to examine the hostility exhibited by the novels of Thomas Pynchon towards the philosophical frameworks erected by three European theorists: Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In parallel to these thinkers, Pynchon’s novels contain, among others, scathing critiques of Western imperialism, biopolitics and structuralist linguistics. Furthermore, each of these writers has been divided into distinct phases, has faced charges of obscurantism and has addressed the relationship between literature, reality and ethics; as has Pynchon. Therefore, it is curious that Pynchon makes direct ironic reference to the ‘indispensable’ works of French theory in Vineland[1], cites Wittgenstein’s Tractatus amid dubious moral circumstances in V.[2], while in Gravity’s Rainbow the trivialisation of Derridean play[3] stands in stark contrast to the deadly new logos of the rocket-city[4] and the transatlantic shift to the ICBM.[5] In response to this contradiction, I would like to address three questions: to what degree do Pynchon’s texts understand and interact with these theorists? Why does Pynchon adopt this double-edged stance? Finally, can this outlook be seen as an ethical standpoint, or merely another instance of the nihilism of which Pynchon is frequently accused?
Calls for such an appraisal were sounded as early as the 1980s by Schaub and Tölölyan, but have not yet been satisfactorily answered. My proposed research synthesises several strands of Pynchon scholarship, while also considering the historical reception of “Theory”, the feedback loops between the academy and the literature it studies and the politics of allegiance to such theories; aspects which have thus far been lacking in the field. Pynchon’s reputation as the American postmodernist par excellence ensures that this work will also undoubtedly be of interest to those working on related authors such as Barth, DeLillo and Gaddis.
Owing to the scarcity of archival material on Pynchon, which John Krafft ascribes to a policy of suppression, I will employ a comparative textual methodology. The resources required for this approach, including documents such as The Times archive for historical verificationism, are all available from Sussex’s main library, The Centre for Literature and Philosophy or the British Library. In addition to Sussex’s strength in interdisciplinary studies, I have an excellent supervisorial fit with Peter Boxall, co-editor of Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, and Doug Haynes, whose PhD focused on Gravity’s Rainbow.
I intend to spend eight months investigating Pynchon’s relation to each theorist and eight months examining interrelations, thereby leaving a four month contingency to ensure prompt completion. As the project develops I expect to be able to locate the ethical, political and philosophical stance in Pynchon’s texts more thoroughly than any previous study. While I acknowledge that the contradictory nature of Pynchon’s writing presents an active challenge for the theorisation of a unified position, perhaps this resistance can itself be deemed a stance. In the midst of such ostensible chaos, as Pynchon writes, such theories might act as mere consolation for, rather than solutions to, the problems of living.
[1] Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (London: Minerva, 1991), p. 97.
[2] Thomas Pynchon, V. (London: Vintage, 2000), p. 278.
[3] Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (London: Vintage, 2000), p. 60.
[4] Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow, pp. 296-297.
[5] Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow, p. 760.