#thomaspynchon

When power corrupts, it keeps a log of its progress , written into that most sensitive memory device, the human face." Thomas Pynchon, Vineland #ThomasPynchon #Vineland #Novels #Reading #Quotes #Power #Corruption

Vineland is a 1990[a] postmodern novel by Thomas Pynchon set in California in 1984, the year of President Ronald Reagan's reelection. Through flashbacks, its characters, who lived through the 1960s, account for the free spirit of rebellion of that decade, and describe the traits of the "fascistic Nixonian repression" and the war on drugs that clashed with it. The book portrays transformations in U.S. society from the 1960s to the 1980s. - Wikipedia My first Thomas Pynchon novel, despite having meant to read him for decades. A dense, intense read, but very worthwhile, and whilst about Reagan's Amerikka and what preceded it is nonetheless very relevant to the events we are living through today. I look forward to reading the loose adaptation, One Battle After Another. #ThomasPynchon #Reading #Novels #USA #America #Nixon #Reagan #WaronDrugs

“Easy. They just let us forget. Give us too much to process, fill up every minute, keep us distracted, it's what the Tube is for, and though it kills me to say it, it's what rock and roll is becoming - just another way to claim our attention, so that beautiful certainty we had starts to fade, and after a while they have us convinced all over again that we really are going to die. And they've got us again.” ― Thomas Pynchon, Vineland #ThomasPynchon #Reading #Vineland #Quotes #Novels #Books

“Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.” ― Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day #reading #quotes #ThomasPynchon

“.. If patterns of ones and zeroes were "like" patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long strings of ones and zeroes, then what kind of creature could be represented by a long string of lives and deaths? It would have to be up one level, at least -- an angel, a minor god, something in a UFO. It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character in this being's name -- its complete dossier might take up a considerable piece of history of the world. We are digits in God's computer, she not so much thought as hummed to herself to sort of a standard gospel tune, And the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies beneath the notice of the hacker we call God.” ― Thomas Pynchon, Vineland #Quotes #Reading #ThomasPynchon

“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, V #Quotes #Reading #ThomasPynchon