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Thomas Pynchon Accomplishments

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Thomas Pynchon is an American author, known for his deep and complex novels. Some say he is the greatest American author since World War II. Being such a private person, there are only few pictures of him in the public, and only few interviews with him. By using satire, irony, and symbolism, he showcased the moral flaws in humans at that time in society. Doing so he influenced many future writers, and artists, as well as the literature world. Pynchon is known for being part of the postmodernism movement in literature. Born on May 8th 1937, in New York, he is the descendent of William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts. His long line of wealthy ancestors and family style greatly influenced his writings. He was student of the year at Oyster Bay High, and …show more content…

He is thought to have influenced many directors, writers, and artists. Specifically influencing Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. One of Pynchon’s novels Gravity’s Rainbow is considered the start of the cyberpunk genre, of which Stephenson and Gibson were very prominent authors in. Pynchon is believed to be the reason cyberpunk made its way into the literature world and grew into a popular genre. “The Bible of the 21st Century has an Old Testament and a New. The Old, written in 1973 by Thomas Pynchon, is called Gravity’s Rainbow.” In 1987, in Spin Magazine, Thomas Leary compared Pynchon's novel to the Old Testament, as if it was like the beginning of something, that without Pynchon, cyberpunk would not be the genre that it is today. He stated that the “New Testament” to Pynchon’s novel was Gibson's novel; Neuromancer. His novel was published in 1973, and cyberpunk was not viewed as a literary genre until the early 1980’s. His novel is considered to be the original cyberpunk novel, which is why some categorize it in that

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