Pynchon Wiki: Against the Day

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Welcome to the Pynchon Wiki

To become a contributor/editor, Create an account.

This is the newly created Wiki for -- inaugurally -- Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day, and eventually for the guides to Pynchon's other "big" novels, V., Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, which are currently available at ThomasPynchon.com. Eventually, all the novels will be migrated here so that registered users of this wiki can create pages and make changes for those novels' guides.

You can take a look at the cover, read the book description written by Pynchon himself, read the reviews, or entertain some theories on the source of the title.

1 How to Use this Wiki
2 Alphabetical Index
3 Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page
4 Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines
5 External Links
6 Featured Article
7 Gallery

How to Use this Wiki

There are two major ways to use this wiki. The first is the Against the Day Alphabetical Index, used to keep track of the myriad characters, real and imagined, as well as events, arcana, and lots of other stuff. The second is the Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page, which allows the reader to look up and contribute allusions and references while reading the book, in a convenient and spoiler-free manner. These two sections are so far almost entirely different, but we're working on integrating them.

Apart from those, it's up to you!

Alphabetical Index

Information on the characters, events, and everything else in Against the Day, organized alphabetically:

Against the Day Alpha Guide

A·B·C·D·E·F·G·H·I·J·K·L·M·N·O·P·Q·R·S·T·U·V·W·XYZ top of page

Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page

An alternate form of commentary on the text, to be linked up (or not) to the alphabetical index as future contributors suggest and agree upon. The guiding principle of these annotations is to remain spoiler-free, so that readers can follow along without the fear that later parts of the book will be revealed.

Part One: The Light Over the Ranges	1-25, 26-56, 57-80, 81-96, 97-118
Part Two: Iceland Spar	119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428.
Part Three: Bilocations	pages coming soon
Part Four: Against the Day	pages coming soon
Part Five: Rue de Départ	pages coming soon

Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines

Click here for help with editing and creating pages.

We have a few conventions we ask that you follow:

When creating a new page, first check to make sure a page/article about what you want to write about hasn't already been created, by checking the list of all Wiki pages on Pynchon Wiki. If a page already exists, please modify that one.

When creating a new page, if its information pertains to one (and only one) specific Pynchon novel (currently just Against the Day, please categorize it with the identifier "ATD" using this syntax: [[Category:ATD]]

To open a discussion on an individual listing of the Alpha Index, see the page on Tait. Basically, give it a name that identifies the alpha listing (eg [[Name Discussion|DISCUSSION]]) and notice that the visible name will be "DISCUSSION" in full caps, so it stands out a bit.

More help for this wiki available here.

External Links

The Modern Word: counting down to ATD

The Fictional Woods - a Pynchon forum

Pynchonoid Blog
ATD Blog
Wikipedia ATD page
Penguin Group AtD Page (Hmmm. There isn't one...)

Featured Article

Tesla's Wardenclyffe laboratory

Was the Tunguska Event Caused by Tesla's Death Ray?
Given that Tesla's inventions generally possessed an element of social conscience, of doing good for humanity, it may seem surprising that he created a number of devices with military applications. And the notion of the Tesla harnessing his mind for purposes of war may seem immensely frightening. After all, this is the man who boasted that with his resonance generator he could split the earth in two... and no one was ever quite sure whether he was joking.

( more...)