Inherent Obligation: The Distinctive Difficulties in and of Recent Pynchon

Abstract

Criticism on Thomas Pynchon's post-Vineland novels has, to a remarkable degree throughout the years since Vineland was released, examined those novels primarily in critical terms—paranoia, indeterminacy, absent centres and so forth—that were established through the canonising of his first three novels. Against such readings, this paper provides grounds for examining Pynchon's post-Vineland work through preoccupations that differentiate it from, rather than yoking it to, the earlier novels. It takes as an exemplar the recent novels' increasing focus on questions of obligation and competing duties, addressing how such a focus situates Pynchon's work in relation to the dominant discourses in contemporary literary ethics, with their emphases on alterity and indeterminacy at the expense of decision-making. The essay first shows how the relationship between paranoia and obligation shifted between Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, then demonstrates how acknowledging the centrality of obligation to the recent work allows a coherent and systematic cross-novel treatment of recurrent plot mechanics such as those relating to debt and patronage.