Product Description

This is the first novel by the author of "Gravity's Rainbow", and a profoundly impressive and original work in its own right. The search for the mysterious V ranges from New York to Cairo to Alexandria to Malta. Apart from its strange heroine, the book's characters include sailors, spies, priests, philosophers, bums and bawds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37473 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

From the Publisher
A modern classic
'The book sails with majesty through caverns measureless to man. Few books haunt the waking or sleeping mind, but this is one' Time

The Quest for V. sweeps us through sixty years and a panorama of Alexandria, Paris, Malta, Florence, Africa and New York. But who, where or what is V.? Bawdy, sometimes sad and frequently hilarious, V has become a modern classic.

'A remarkable book' Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
Thomas Pynchon was born in 1937 on Long Island and educated at Cornell. He received the national book award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.

Customer Reviews

A brilliant, schizophrenic book.
V is an unholy marriage between two different stories. Benny Profane is a beatnik who hangs around New York with a bunch of scoundrels called the Whole Sick Crew. Herbert Stencil is bent on proving that history has been driven by the letter V. The result of the combination is a book with more scope than you can imagine would fit into 450 pages. The book careens around the darkest and most colourful episodes of history by turns. Pynchon has his fingers in so many different pies that he manages to connect a huge spectrum of groups and experiences, and you're left with a jaw-droppingly global, if madcap, perspective, on what it means to be around in the second half of this century: 'Be cool, but care.'

Follow the participants in the V spree as they savour the thrills of Suck Hour in the Rusty Spoon, pursue alligators through labyrinthine New York sewers where a deranged Father once sought to convert rats to Christianity, and realise that a desert siege party is the worst of all places in which to attempt to monitor alien emissions...

Fine literary prose and incredible characterisation.
If you look carefully on Amazon, you’ll find more books ABOUT the writings of Thomas Pynchon than you will BY Thomas Pynchon. He seems to be the writer of choice for critics, literary analysts and scholars alike. That aside, you cannot question the depth of this man’s writing talent, and V is a great example.

I think that many people who read this book will find it a chore, and eventually wont “get” the story. It twists and turns and at times goes off on tangents that dare to keep the readers attention. Sure, it’s hard going at times, but worth every word. The character development is unconventional, but thorough. The art of the scenes and the situations (and the whole sick crew!) is immaculate. As the story draws to a close the pieces fit together beautifully and create 20th century literary classic.

A companion to this book (as with all of TP books) is available, but treat the book as a separate item, and don’t taint it with over analysis.

One of the best novels we have
I can't add much to what's already been said about Pynchon. He is one of my three or four favorite living writers all of whom have something in common and all of whom, I guess, are about the same age == MICHAEL MOORCOCK (whose War Amongst the Angels books are no more 'sci fi' than Pynchon's), DON DELILLO (who is maybe the best of them overall) and J.G.BALLARD (whose latest books aren't 'sci fi' either). There is something about these writers' sensibility, their grasp on modern times, that makes them constantly rereadable. I couldn't tell you who was the best, but I could suggest you try reading them one after the other. If you do, you will wind up knowing more about our present day than when you started. If you're unfamiliar with these writers, I'd suggest you start with this one, then try Players by DeLillo, The Atrocity Exhibition by Ballard and Blood and The War Amongst the Angels by Moorcock. I don't think there's ever been a better time to be reading novels. V will prove it.