Countdown to Pynchon

Thomas Pyn­chon has made a career milk­ing elu­sive­ness for all its worth. His writ­ing is noto­ri­ous­ly hard to pin down. Pub­lish­ers nev­er know when to expect some­thing new. (He has only put out 6 books since 1963.) And, phys­i­cal­ly, Pyn­chon is nowhere, ever, to be found.

But this much we know right now. Against the Day, his next nov­el and the first since 1997, is set to be pub­lished on Novem­ber 21, 2006.

This big book (1120 pages) is a big deal with­in Pyn­chon cir­cles, so much so that Pyn­chon’s pub­lish­er, Pen­guin, has­n’t both­ered pro­mot­ing the book, oth­er than casu­al­ly list­ing it on Ama­zon. Admist the hoopla, one of the cool­er things to emerge is the Against the Day Wiki. Using the same soft­ware as Wikipedia, the Pyn­chon wiki will let Pyn­chon enthu­si­asts devel­op entries that tease out the nov­el­’s char­ac­ters and events. Oh, can’t you taste the min­u­taie?!