|
Vineland Station, Ontario
''Vineland'' is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection.Knabb 2002 Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived during the '60s in their youth, the story accounts for the free spirit of rebellion of that decade, and describes the traits of the "fascistic Nixonian repression" and the War on Drugs that clashed with it; and it articulates the slide and transformation that occurred in U.S. society from the 1960s to the 1980s.Vineland, p.71Patell (2001) p.129 Plot The story is set in California, United States, in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's re-election. After a scene in which former hippy Zoyd Wheeler dives through a window, something he is required to do yearly to keep receiving mental disability checks, the action of the novel opens with the resurfacing of federal agent Brock Vond, who (through a platoon of agents) forces Zoyd and his 14-year-old daughter Prairie out of t ... [...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, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. (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.) He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: ''V.'' (1963), ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1973). Rumors of a historical novel about Charles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double Agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organization for the target organization. Double agentry may be practiced by spies of the target organization who infiltrate the controlling organization or may result from the ''turning'' (switching sides) of previously loyal agents of the controlling organization by the target. The threat of execution is the most common method of turning a captured agent (working for an intelligence service) into a double agent (working for a foreign intelligence service) or a double agent into a ''re-doubled agent''. It is unlike a Defection, defector, who is not considered an agent as agents are in place to function for an intelligence service and defectors are not, but some consider that defectors in place are agents until they have defected. Double agent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James McManus
} James "Jim" McManus (born March 22, 1951) is an Americans, American teacher, writer and poker player living in Kenilworth, Illinois. He is a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program for writers at the Art Institute of Chicago. Poker and ''Positively Fifth Street'' McManus is best known as the author of the book ''Positively Fifth Street, Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker'' (). The book is dedicated to his son, James McManus (1979–2001). The book is based on his trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, Las Vegas to cover the progress of women in the 2000 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the death of Ted Binion. He used his advance to enter a satellite tournament for entry into the main event, defeating the likes of Hasan Habib to qualify for the seat. He made the final table of the Main Event, finishing in 5th place and winning $247,760. He credited his success in the tournament to the book ''Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold'em'' () ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and WGN-TV, WGN television received their call letters. It is the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region, and the List of newspapers in the United States, sixth-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the then new Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century, under Medill's grandson 'Colonel' Robert R. McCormick, its reputation was that of a crusading newspaper with an outlook that promoted Conservatism in the United States, American conservatism and opposed the New Deal. Its reporting and commenta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York Times''. Together with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann, they established the F-R Publishing Company and set up the magazine's first office in Manhattan. Ross remained the editor until his death in 1951, shaping the magazine's editorial tone and standards. ''The New Yorker''s fact-checking operation is widely recognized among journalists as one of its strengths. Although its reviews and events listings often focused on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' gained a reputation for publishing serious essays, long-form journalism, well-regarded fiction, and humor for a national and international audience, including work by writers such as Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, and Alice Munro. In the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brad Leithauser
Brad E. Leithauser (born February 27, 1953) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College and visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he is now on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. Biography Leithauser was born in 1953 in Detroit, Michigan. He is an alumnus of the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He worked for three years as a research fellow at the Kyoto Comparative Law Center in Japan. Leithauser has lived in Japan, Italy, England, Iceland, and France. He was married to the poet Mary Jo Salter for many years (they divorced in December 2011) and previously taught at Mount Holyoke College. In January, 2007, Leithauser joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Leithauser's work has appeared in ''The New Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Review Of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Books'' was founded in 1979, when publication of ''The Times Literary Supplement'' was suspended during the year-long Lockout (industry), lock-out at ''The Times''. Its founding editors were Karl Miller, then professor of English at University College London; Mary-Kay Wilmers, formerly an editor at ''The Times Literary Supplement''; and Susannah Clapp, a former editor at Jonathan Cape. For its first six months, it appeared as an insert in ''The New York Review of Books''. It became an independent publication in May 1980. Its political stance has been described by Alan Bennett, a prominent contributor, as "consistently radical". Unlike ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (TLS), the majority of the articles the ''LRB'' publishes (usually fifteen p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravity's Rainbow
''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by the American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the ("black device"), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000". Traversing a wide range of knowledge, ''Gravity's Rainbow'' crosses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction with ''A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories'' by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as 'unreadable', 'turgid', 'overwr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Crying Of Lot 49
''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a novel by the American author Thomas Pynchon. It was published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. on April27, 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies. One of these companies, Thurn and Taxis, actually existed; operating from 1806 to 1867, Thurn and Taxis was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's writing, ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is often described as postmodernist literature. ''Time'' magazine included the book in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. Plot In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in a northern Californian village, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless radio jockey and ephebophile, and her sessions with Dr. Hilarius, an unhinged German psychotherapist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Kermode
Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was the Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London and the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University. Kermode was known for many works of criticism, and also as editor of the popular Fontana Modern Masters series of introductions to modern thinkers. He was a regular contributor to the ''London Review of Books'' and ''The New York Review of Books''. Early life and education Kermode was born on the Isle of Man, the only son and elder child of John Pritchard Kermode (1894–1966) and Doris Pearl (1893–1967), née Kennedy. His father was a delivery truck driver and warehouseman for a ferry company, and his mother, a "farm girl", had been a waitress. The family was of "e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern world, Eastern and Western world, Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, ''Midnight's Children'' (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the Man Booker Prize#Winners, 25th and the The Best of the Booker, 40th anniversary of the prize. After his fourth novel, ''The Satanic Verses'' (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats because of what was seen by some to be an irreverent Depictions of Muhammad, depiction of Muhammad. This included a ''fatwa'' calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. The book was banned in 20 countries. Numerous killin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
