Thomas Pynchon, Shadow Ticket (2025)

The first thing you have to say about this is that it just reads like a dream. I mean, I've been a fan of Pynchon for a while now, and appreciated his writing, but somehow this just drove it home for me. Is that because of the book itself, or because I read it immediately after flippin' Pamela, which can best be described as astylistic? Hard to say, but I loved reading it. I took longer than you might have thought, but it's not because I was stalled out. It's because I was savoring it and didn't want it to end. True fact.

Another rather amazing thing about is how horny it isn't. Seriously, there's no reason you'd find anything amiss if this was your first Pynchon, but the lack of sex scenes, or any explicit material, is extremely noticeable if it's not. There IS one scene where sex occurs, but it's glossed over in the way a PG-rated movie would do. And it's interesting: because on the one hand, I'm all for this. I can absolutely do without, especially, the very quasi-consensual stuff he likes a little too much (did someone sit him down and tell him, Pynch, dude, that's just a liiiiiittle iffy the metoo era?  Either way, it's very clearly an intentional choice). But you do notice--well, I don't even really know how to put this: the sex stuff is often badly-done and awkward and generally ill-advised, AND YET, sex is what life is predicated on, and is it reasonable for me to suggest that, however subtly, its absence maybe somehow vitiates the book slightly? Don't get me wrong; I'm not coming to any firm or even loose conclusions. But it's interesting to think about.

Well, I haven't really talked about the plot, but there's actually not that much to talk about, unless you want to get really granular. Hicks McTaggart is a private eye and somewhat-reformed pinkerton in Milwaukee, just doin' cases, until he gets involved with the "Al Capone of Cheese" (hey, it's Pynchon), and gets enlisted to go after his missing daughter, which ends up dumping him in Hungary. This is 1934, by the way, so not a GREAT time! A lot of the stuff in Hungary is very jumbled; we have really quite a lot of not-very-differentiated characters doing their things. I know some of my confusion is my fault; I'll certainly reread it one day: but you are left with the conclusion that it IS maybe a bit slight.

I know there's a tendency to dismiss shorter Pynchon as "lesser," and I don't approve of that. Vineland isn't lesser than anything. But the fact is, I wanted Shadow Ticket to be longer. I wanted it to have more space to sprawl out. I still loved it! Don't get me wrong! It's a wonderful gift to get a new novel at this late date, and I will TAKE it! So...yeah.

Oh, right, we have to ask how this connects to the PCU, and in this case it's easy: we've got fuckin' Lew Basnight from Against the Day. Booyah! I suppose when you think about it, he IS the most appropriate character to show up. I'd have loved to see what that crazy old coot Merle Rideout had been up to, too, but what the hey. Also, Hicks travels to Europe on the Stupendica, which real heads will remember as the bifurcated passenger ship/war vessel in AtD. Seems pretty safely in the former mode for now, though. Good job, everyone.