Pynchon

Dodge, Jim. Stone junction an alchemical pot-boiler with an introduction by Thomas Pynchon. Rebel Inc, 1997. 

Thomas R. Pynchon, Introduction to Chemical Physics, 3d rev. ed. (Philadelphia Van Nostrand, 1881). 

Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity s Rainbow. New York Viking, 1974. 

In this sense a supermolecule is defined as a large entity composed of molecular subunits which could be applied equally to a covalently linked polymer as to an assembly held together by weaker interactions. It is in this context that Thomas Pynchon used the word metaphorically in 1973 when describing a character in Gravity s Rainbow as ... 

Richard Sasuly, ig Farben (New York, 1947), p. 216. Sasuly s book had a curious afterlife. Thomas Pynchon quoted passages from it virtually word for word in his novel of 1973, Gravity s Rainbow. 

Werke concentration camp on the outskirts of Auschwitz, comparable to the rocket-building labor camp at Peenemunde that hosts one of Pyn-chon s set-pieces in Gravity s Rainbow. Seed says that Pynchon concentrates on IG as a process, a steady relentless agglomeration of power through mergers, takeovers and contracts [...] IG becomes the model of the totalitarian state . It is, indeed, the prototype of the modem military-industrial complex but one in which the tentacles of power are entwined with elements of the occult and chthonic. 

But that is a complaint about power stmctures, not technology per se. And in Gravity s Rainbow Pynchon is more interested in exploring the genealogy of this stmcture than in formulating an anti-technological stance. 

In tracing the origins of Imipolex G, Pynchon takes us deep into the early history of polymer science. The material is, he says,... 

One might imagine that Pynchon could have got away with making this stuff up but I am not sure that he eould have made it sound authentic unless it really was (as, in essenee, it is). 

What is so special about Imipolex G True to the nature of the narrative, Pynchon succeeds brilliantly in uniting the scientifically plausible, indeed even the prescient, with the wiekedly sensual ... 

Imipolex G is the first plastic that is actually erectile. Under suitable stimuli, the chains grow cross-links, which stiffen the molecule and increase intermolecular attraction so that this Peculiar Polymer runs far outside the known phase diagrams, from limp rubbery amorphous to amazing perfect tesselation, hardness, brilliant transparency, high resistance to temperature, weather, vacuum, shock of any kind [...] Evidently the stimulus would have had to be electronic. [Pynchon 1995, p. 699]... 

Beck, U. 1992, Risk Society Towards a New Modernity, trans. M. Ritter, Sage, London. Black, J.D. 1980, Probing a post-Romantic palaeontology Thomas Pynchon s Gravity s Rainbow , Boundary, 2, 8ii, p. 233. 

Seed, D. 1988, The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon, Macmillan, Basingstoke. 

Pynchon, Thomas. 1973. Gravity s Rainbow. The Viking Press, N.Y. Pp. 760. XP... 

The truth is they are both so blitzed that neither one knows what he s talking about..." Pynchon (1973, p. 442). 

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