行星品钦:历史、现代性与人类世》,作者 Tore Rye Andersen(评论)

IF 0.5 2区 文学 0 LITERATURE STUDIES IN THE NOVEL Pub Date : 2024-08-27 DOI:10.1353/sdn.2024.a935475
Patrick Whitmarsh
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In <em>Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene</em>, Tore Rye Andersen deals a massive hand to this critical gambit, structured around extensive readings and contextual analyses of Pynchon's three most substantial works: <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> (1973), <em>Mason &amp; Dixon</em> (1997), and <em>Against the Day</em> (2006). Treating these works as \"one coherent megatext\" (20), Andersen argues for Pynchon as a writer of what we might call the global process of modernity—a protracted history from the rise of capitalism to World War II. Hardly a history of incremental progress, Pynchon's vision channels the \"dark side of the growth scenarios of modernity\" (11), the subtractions, negations, and depletions that make possible an ideology of Euro-American supremacy. Erecting a conceptual bridge from the colonial and imperial discourses that inform modern global capitalism to the critical environmentalisms that make up the growing field of Anthropocene studies, Andersen delivers an ambitiously conceived and deeply rewarding analysis of one the most important American novelists of the post−World War II era.</p> <p>In a broad sense, <em>Planetary Pynchon</em> pushes through and beyond foundational postmodernist and historiographic readings of the author by such critics as David Cowart, Linda Hutcheon, and Brian McHale, yet does so in a way that builds on this earlier work. Reading Pynchon at the planetary scale, Andersen underscores the way the author's global novels highlight and even formally embody the contingency of historical development: \"in historical nodal points like those depicted in Pynchon's world-historical novels, we are rather faced with a multiplexity of possible paths, none of which seem to lead to any safety\" (48). Paired with an Anthropocene environmentalism, Andersen's emphasis finds rejuvenated meaning. The unnumbered and ever-dividing potentialities that perpetually regenerate across human history mirror the complex array of biophysical feedback loops that unspool over planetary time. As Andersen's argument goes, Pynchon's global trilogy clarifies the correlation between these scales: the \"world-historical depiction of the forceful spread of modernity across the globe is also the story of the growth of the Anthropocene\" (161).</p> <p>Andersen develops his argument by moving through Pynchon's novels not in order of publication but in the chronological order of the periods in which they are set: eighteenth century (<em>Mason &amp; Dixon</em>), the turn of the twentieth century (<em>Against the Day</em>), and mid-twentieth century (<em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>). Despite this organization, the chapters <strong>[End Page 323]</strong> do not maintain an exclusive focus on the governing text but keep all three novels in conversation. This is to the book's credit; Andersen's dialogic structure enables readers to apprehend more easily the substantive connections between the novels. Perhaps more importantly, the structure illuminates the extent to which the three global novels are part of a decades-long project on Pynchon's part. Readers could be forgiven for suspicion toward this claim considering the unlikelihood that Pynchon grasped the full scope of his megatext already with the publication of <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, if not earlier. Also to the book's credit, Andersen responds to this suspicion in his fourth chapter, which offers an \"alternative history\" (129) of the novels that acknowledges the evolution of their author's style and his treatment of such political matters as gender and race (the latter of which is of supreme importance to a project so critically focused on the history of colonialism). Perhaps most insightful in this chapter is Andersen's admission that, even in his great global novels, Pynchon succumbs to the weight of expectation: \"In <em>Mason &amp; Dixon</em> and <em>Against the Day</em> we get brilliant prose by a master in full control of his medium; in <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> we get a strange hybrid that transgresses boundaries and twists language into new constellations\" (147). 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Reading Pynchon at the planetary scale, Andersen underscores the way the author's global novels highlight and even formally embody the contingency of historical development: \\\"in historical nodal points like those depicted in Pynchon's world-historical novels, we are rather faced with a multiplexity of possible paths, none of which seem to lead to any safety\\\" (48). Paired with an Anthropocene environmentalism, Andersen's emphasis finds rejuvenated meaning. The unnumbered and ever-dividing potentialities that perpetually regenerate across human history mirror the complex array of biophysical feedback loops that unspool over planetary time. 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摘要

以下是内容的简要摘录,以代替摘要:评论者 行星品钦:历史、现代性与人类世》,作者:托尔-赖伊-安德森-帕特里克-惠特马什 安德森,托尔-赖伊。行星品钦:历史、现代性与人类世》。剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2023 年。228 pp.精装本 110.00 美元。长期以来,我们这些从事品钦研究这一细分领域工作的人--如果你愿意的话,可以称为 "品头族"--一直在争论支配这位作家无与伦比的作品的内在秩序或逻辑。在《行星品钦:历史、现代性与人类世》(Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene)一书中,托尔-雷伊-安德森(Tore Rye Andersen)对这一批判性的博弈进行了大量的论述,对品钦的三部最重要的作品进行了广泛的解读和背景分析:重力之虹》(Gravity's Rainbow,1973 年)、《梅森与迪克森》(Mason & Dixon,1997 年)和《逆天》(Against the Day,2006 年)。安德森将这些作品视为 "一个连贯的巨型文本"(20),认为品钦是我们可以称之为全球现代进程的作家--从资本主义兴起到第二次世界大战的漫长历史。品钦的视野并不是一部循序渐进的历史,而是 "现代性增长情景的阴暗面"(11),即减法、否定和损耗,这使得欧美至上的意识形态成为可能。安德森在概念上架起了一座桥梁,从为现代全球资本主义提供信息的殖民主义和帝国主义话语,到构成日益壮大的 "人类世 "研究领域的批判性环境主义,他对二战后美国最重要的小说家之一进行了雄心勃勃的构思和深入有益的分析。从广义上讲,《行星品钦》推动并超越了大卫-考瓦特、琳达-胡琴和布赖恩-麦克黑尔等评论家对作者的后现代主义和历史学基础性解读,同时又在这些早期作品的基础上进行了创新。安德森从地球尺度解读品钦,强调了作者的全球小说是如何突出甚至正式体现历史发展的偶然性的:"在品钦的世界历史小说所描绘的历史节点上,我们面临着多种可能的道路,但似乎没有一条是安全的"(48)。与 "人类世 "环境主义相结合,安徒生所强调的意义焕然一新。在人类历史中不断再生的、不计其数的、不断分裂的潜能,反映了在地球时间内不断发展的一系列复杂的生物物理反馈回路。正如安德森所言,品钦的全球三部曲阐明了这些尺度之间的关联:"对现代性在全球范围内强势传播的世界历史描绘,也是人类世成长的故事"(161)。安德森在展开论述时,不是按照出版顺序,而是按照小说所处时代的时间顺序来阅读品钦的小说:十八世纪(《梅森与迪克森》)、二十世纪之交(《逆天》)和二十世纪中期(《万有引力之虹》)。尽管采用了这种编排方式,但各章节 [尾页 323]并没有只关注主要文本,而是将所有三部小说放在一起进行讨论。这是本书的优点;安徒生的对话结构使读者更容易理解小说之间的实质性联系。也许更重要的是,这种结构揭示了三部全球小说在多大程度上是品钦数十年创作计划的一部分。考虑到品钦不可能在《万有引力之虹》出版时(如果不是更早的话)就已经掌握了其巨型文本的全部范围,读者对这一说法的怀疑是可以原谅的。同样值得称赞的是,安徒生在第四章中对这种怀疑做出了回应,该章提供了一部小说的 "另类历史"(129),承认了作者风格的演变以及他对性别和种族等政治问题的处理(后者对于一部如此批判性地关注殖民主义历史的作品来说至关重要)。在这一章中,安徒生承认,即使在他伟大的全球小说中,品钦也会屈服于期望的重压:"在《梅森与迪克逊》(Mason & Dixon)和《逆时针》(Against the Day)中,我们看到了一位完全掌控了自己的媒介的大师所创作的精彩散文;而在《万有引力之虹》中,我们看到的是一种奇特的混合体,它超越了界限,将语言扭曲成新的星座"(147)。值得反复强调的是,早期品钦作品的顶峰为后世建立了一个模板。
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Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene by Tore Rye Andersen (review)
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene by Tore Rye Andersen
  • Patrick Whitmarsh
ANDERSEN, TORE RYE. Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 228 pp. $110.00 hardcover.

Those of us in the niche subfield of Pynchon studies—Pynheads, if you please—have long debated the inner order or logic that governs the author's inimitable corpus. In Planetary Pynchon: History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene, Tore Rye Andersen deals a massive hand to this critical gambit, structured around extensive readings and contextual analyses of Pynchon's three most substantial works: Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006). Treating these works as "one coherent megatext" (20), Andersen argues for Pynchon as a writer of what we might call the global process of modernity—a protracted history from the rise of capitalism to World War II. Hardly a history of incremental progress, Pynchon's vision channels the "dark side of the growth scenarios of modernity" (11), the subtractions, negations, and depletions that make possible an ideology of Euro-American supremacy. Erecting a conceptual bridge from the colonial and imperial discourses that inform modern global capitalism to the critical environmentalisms that make up the growing field of Anthropocene studies, Andersen delivers an ambitiously conceived and deeply rewarding analysis of one the most important American novelists of the post−World War II era.

In a broad sense, Planetary Pynchon pushes through and beyond foundational postmodernist and historiographic readings of the author by such critics as David Cowart, Linda Hutcheon, and Brian McHale, yet does so in a way that builds on this earlier work. Reading Pynchon at the planetary scale, Andersen underscores the way the author's global novels highlight and even formally embody the contingency of historical development: "in historical nodal points like those depicted in Pynchon's world-historical novels, we are rather faced with a multiplexity of possible paths, none of which seem to lead to any safety" (48). Paired with an Anthropocene environmentalism, Andersen's emphasis finds rejuvenated meaning. The unnumbered and ever-dividing potentialities that perpetually regenerate across human history mirror the complex array of biophysical feedback loops that unspool over planetary time. As Andersen's argument goes, Pynchon's global trilogy clarifies the correlation between these scales: the "world-historical depiction of the forceful spread of modernity across the globe is also the story of the growth of the Anthropocene" (161).

Andersen develops his argument by moving through Pynchon's novels not in order of publication but in the chronological order of the periods in which they are set: eighteenth century (Mason & Dixon), the turn of the twentieth century (Against the Day), and mid-twentieth century (Gravity's Rainbow). Despite this organization, the chapters [End Page 323] do not maintain an exclusive focus on the governing text but keep all three novels in conversation. This is to the book's credit; Andersen's dialogic structure enables readers to apprehend more easily the substantive connections between the novels. Perhaps more importantly, the structure illuminates the extent to which the three global novels are part of a decades-long project on Pynchon's part. Readers could be forgiven for suspicion toward this claim considering the unlikelihood that Pynchon grasped the full scope of his megatext already with the publication of Gravity's Rainbow, if not earlier. Also to the book's credit, Andersen responds to this suspicion in his fourth chapter, which offers an "alternative history" (129) of the novels that acknowledges the evolution of their author's style and his treatment of such political matters as gender and race (the latter of which is of supreme importance to a project so critically focused on the history of colonialism). Perhaps most insightful in this chapter is Andersen's admission that, even in his great global novels, Pynchon succumbs to the weight of expectation: "In Mason & Dixon and Against the Day we get brilliant prose by a master in full control of his medium; in Gravity's Rainbow we get a strange hybrid that transgresses boundaries and twists language into new constellations" (147). It is an irony worth repeating that the apogee of early Pynchon established a template for...

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来源期刊
STUDIES IN THE NOVEL
STUDIES IN THE NOVEL LITERATURE-
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期刊介绍: From its inception, Studies in the Novel has been dedicated to building a scholarly community around the world-making potentialities of the novel. Studies in the Novel started as an idea among several members of the English Department of the University of North Texas during the summer of 1965. They determined that there was a need for a journal “devoted to publishing critical and scholarly articles on the novel with no restrictions on either chronology or nationality of the novelists studied.” The founding editor, University of North Texas professor of contemporary literature James W. Lee, envisioned a journal of international scope and influence. Since then, Studies in the Novel has staked its reputation upon publishing incisive scholarship on the canon-forming and cutting-edge novelists that have shaped the genre’s rich history. The journal continues to break new ground by promoting new theoretical approaches, a broader international scope, and an engagement with the contemporary novel as a form of social critique.
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