This document provides biographical information about author Thomas Pynchon in bullet point form. It notes that he was born in 1937 in Long Island, New York, graduated high school early with honors, attended Cornell University but left to serve in the Navy, returned to Cornell to earn his English degree, and is most famous for his novels like V., The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity's Rainbow. The document also provides some details about Pynchon's writing styles and themes around postmodernism and avoidance of public exposure.

1. English 2205
Dr. C

2.  Born on May 8th, 1937
 Long Island, New York
 Graduated from High School at age 16
 Salutatorian
 Highest English grade
 Went to Cornell
 After sophomore year left to serve in the Navy
 Returned to Cornell
 Degree in English

3.  Wrote 5 short stories in 2 years
 “Entropy”
 Most famous for his novels
 V.
 The Crying Lot of 49
 Gravity’s Rainbow
 Vineland
 Mason & Dixon
 Won William Faulkner Foundation Award for best
first novel of the year
 Won the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation
Award for “The Crying of Lot 49”
 Another piece by Pynchon was selected for the
Pulitzer Prize in Lit. but never received the award
 Unreadable, turgid, overwritten, and obscene

4.  Racism, imperialism and religion
 Blurs difference between high and low
class
 Deconstruction
 Defining characteristic of postmodernism
 Song lyrics and musical numbers
 Physics and Navy background

5.  “the world’s most famous literary recluse”
 Avoided public exposure
 Lives in California
 Against the Day
 November 2006

6.  Set in Washington, D.C. in February of
1957
 Meatball Mulligan throws a huge party
 Many strange guests
 Random people show up
-Saul
-College girls
-Navy Men
 Chaos ensues and Mulligan fixes things for

7.  A man named Callisto and a girl named
Aubade live in a hermetically sealed
hothouse
 Callisto is holding a dying bird and ranting
about the laws of thermodynamics
 Aubade checks the temperature frequently
and it is always 37 degrees
 The bird dies
 Aubade breaks the windows

8.  http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Thomas_Pynchon