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V.
''V.'' is a satirical postmodern novel and the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, published on March 18, 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Whole Sick Crew, and the quest of an aging traveler named Herbert Stencil to identify and locate the mysterious entity he knows only as "V." It was nominated for a National Book Award. Plot summary The novel alternates between episodes featuring Benny, Stencil and other members of the Whole Sick Crew (including Profane's sidekick Pig Bodine) in 1956 (with a few minor flashbacks), and a generation-spanning plot that comprises Stencil's attempts to unravel the clues he believes will lead him to "V." (or to the various incarnations thereof). Each of these "Stencilised" chapters is set at a different moment of historical crisis; the framing narrative involving Stencil, "V.", and the journals of Stenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon won the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction."National Book Awards – 1974" . Retrieved 2012-03-29. (With essays by Casey Hicks and Chad Post from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. The mock acceptance speech by Irwin Corey is not reprinted by NBF.) Hailing from |
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and the 94th-largest city in the nation. Norfolk holds a strategic position as the historical, urban, financial, and cultural center of the Hampton Roads region, which has more than 1.8 million inhabitants and is the thirty-third largest Metropolitan Statistical area in the United States. Officially known as ''Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA'', the Hampton Roads region is sometimes called "Tidewater" and "Coastal Virginia"/"COVA," although these are broader terms that also include Virginia's Eastern Shore and entire coastal plain. Named for the eponymous natural harbor at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads has ten cities, including Norfolk; seven counties in Virginia; and two counties in No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society Of Jesus
, image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = , founding_location = , type = Order of clerics regular of pontifical right (for men) , headquarters = Generalate:Borgo S. Spirito 4, 00195 Roma-Prati, Italy , coords = , region_served = Worldwide , num_members = 14,839 members (includes 10,721 priests) as of 2020 , leader_title = Motto , leader_name = la, Ad Majorem Dei GloriamEnglish: ''For the Greater Glory of God'' , leader_title2 = Superior General , leader_name2 = Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ , leader_title3 = Patron saints , leader_name3 = , leader_title4 = Ministry , leader_name4 = Missionary, educational, literary works , main_organ = La Civiltà Cattoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. Located near the southern tip of New York State, Manhattan is based in the Eastern Time Zone and constitutes both the geographical and demographic center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. Over 58 million people live within 250 miles of Manhattan, which serves as New York City’s economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and the city’s historical birthplace. Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world, is considered a safe haven for global real estate investors, and hosts the United Nations headquarters. New York City is the headquarters of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sewer Alligator
Sewer alligator stories date back to the late 1920s and early 1930s; in most instances they are part of contemporary legend. They are based upon reports of alligator sightings in rather unorthodox locations, in particular New York City. ''The New York Times'' reports the city rescues 100 alligators per year, some directly from homes where they are kept as illegal pets (which can be legally ordered online in other states and are legal to mail when small), and some from outside (where they can attract considerable attention) though mostly above-ground. Though escapees and former pets may survive for a short time in New York sewers, longer-term survival is not possible due to low temperatures and the bacteria in human feces. Sewer maintenance crews insist there is no underground population. A similar story from 1851 involves feral pigs in the sewers of Hampstead, London. Legend Following the reports of sewer alligators in the 1930s, the story has built up over the decades and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Expeditionary Forces
The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alongside French Army, British Army, Canadian Army, New Zealand Army and Australian Army units against the Imperial German Army. A small number of A. E. F. troops also fought alongside Italian Army units in that same year against the Austro-Hungarian Army. The A. E. F. helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at the Battle of Château-Thierry and Battle of Belleau Wood) in the summer of 1918, and fought its major actions in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the latter part of 1918. Formation President Woodrow Wilson initially planned to give command of the A. E. F. to Gen. Frederick Funston, but after Funston's sudden death, Wilson appointed Major General John J. Pershing in Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Baedeker
Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker ( , ; 3 November 1801 – 4 October 1859) was a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for authoritative guidebooks for tourists. Karl Baedeker was descended from a long line of printers, booksellers and publishers. He was the eldest of ten children of Gottschalk Diederich Bädeker (1778–1841), who had inherited the publishing house founded by his own father, Zacharias Gerhard Bädeker (1750–1800). The company also published the local newspaper, the ''Essendische Zeitung'', and the family expected that Karl, too, would eventually join the firm. Karl changed the spelling of the family name from Bädeker with the umlaut to Baedeker around 1850. Biography Karl Baedeker was born in Essen, then in the Kingdom of Prussia, on November 3, 1801. After his schooling in Hagen, he left home in 1817 to study humanities in Heidelberg where he also worked for a while at the leading local bookseller J.C.B. Mohr. Military service foll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1984. Events * April 4 – The narrative of George Orwell's dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' ( 1949) begins and causes widespread discussion. G. K. Chesterton's '' The Napoleon of Notting Hill'' (1904) is also set in this year; and Haruki Murakami's '' 1Q84'' (いちきゅうはちよん, ''Ichi-Kyū-Hachi-Yon'', 2009–2010) is set in a parallel version of it. *June 16 – Cirque du Soleil is founded in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix. *July – Tom Wolfe's novel '' The Bonfire of the Vanities'' begins serialization in ''Rolling Stone''. *December 19 – Ted Hughes' appointment as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom is announced in succession to Sir John Betjeman, Philip Larkin having turned down the post. *''unknown dates'' **Prvoslav Vujčić's second poetry collection, ''Kastriranje vetra'' (Castration of the Wind), wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slow Learner
''Slow Learner'' is the 1984 published collection of five early short stories by the American novelist Thomas Pynchon, originally published in various sources between 1959 and 1964. The book is also notable for its introduction, written by Pynchon. His comments on the stories after reading them again for the first time in many years, and his recollection of the events surrounding their creation, amount to the author's only autobiographical comments to his readers. Content * Introduction * "The Small Rain" – First published in March 1959 in the ''Cornell Writer'', No. 2, pp. 14–32. * "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" (available only in some editions) – First published in ''Epoch'' (Cornell University), Spring 1959, Vol IX, No. 4, pp. 195–213. **The story takes its title from ''Measure for Measure'' Act I Scene 1 Line 44. * "Low-lands" – First published in ''New World Writing'', No. 16, Philadelphia: Lippincott, on 16 March 1960, pp. 85–108. * "Entrop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1961 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1961. Events *January 24 – The American dramatist Arthur Miller and the film star Marilyn Monroe are granted a divorce in Mexico on grounds of incompatibility. *February – Sylvia Plath suffers a miscarriage. Several of her poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", address the event. *March 15 – Hugh Wheeler's comedy '' Big Fish, Little Fish'' opens at the ANTA Theater in New York City, directed by Sir John Gielgud. It is one of the early Broadway plays to explore frankly the issue of male homosexuality. *March 20 – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, becomes the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and its company the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Peter Hall as director. *May – Grove Press publishes Henry Miller's ''Tropic of Cancer'' in the United States 27 years after its original publication in France. The book leads to one of many obscenity trials (Grove Press, Inc., v. Gers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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