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A collection of Pynchon's early short stories, entitled ''[[Slow Learner]]'', was published in 1984, with a lengthy autobiography|autobiographical introduction. In October of the same year, an article entitled "Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?" was published in the ''New York Times Book Review''. In April 1988, Pynchon contributed an extensive review of Gabriel García Marquéz's novel, ''Love in the Time of Cholera'', to the ''New York Times'', under the title "The Heart's Eternal Vow". Another article, entitled "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee", was published in June 1993 in the ''New York Times Book Review'', as one in a series of articles in which various writers reflected on each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Pynchon's subject was "Sloth".
===Vineland===
Pynchon's fourth novel, ''[[Vineland]]'', was published in 1990. The novel is set in California in the 1980s and 1960s, and describes the relationship between an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] [[COINTELPRO]] agent and a female radical filmmaker. Its strong socio-political undercurrents detail the constant battle between authoritarianism and communalism, and the nexus between resistance and complicity, but with a typically Pynchonian sense of humor.
In 1988, he received a MacArthur Fellowship and, since the early 1990s at least, many observers have mentioned Pynchon as a Nobel Prize contender.<ref>See, for example, Grimes 1993, CNN Book News 1999, Ervin 2000</ref> Renowned American literary critic Harold Bloom has named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Cormac McCarthy.
===Mason & Dixon===Pynchon's fifth novel is , ''[[Mason & Dixon]]'', a work which had been was published in the pipeline since 1978 at least1997. Pynchon began writing it as early as January 1975.<ref>Roeder 1978; see also Ulin 1997Gussow</ref> Published in 1997, the The meticulously-researched novel is a sprawling saga recounting the lives and careers of the English astronomer, [[Charles Mason]], and his partner, the surveyor [[Jeremiah Dixon]], and the birth of the [[American Revolution|American Republic]]. While it received some negative reviews, the great majority of commentators acknowledged it as a welcome return to form, and some, including Bloom, have called it Pynchon's greatest work to date.
===''Against the Day''===
