Thomas Pynchon

Alan Moore’s mammoth new book, ‘Jerusalem,’ is ambitious—but he’s hardly the first literary light to explore the meaning and possibility of the fourth dimension

Can P.T. Anderson’s ‘Inherent Vice’ pull off the ambitious feat of bringing the reclusive Thomas Pynchon into the mainstream?

Matt Selman, who has been writing for The Simpsons in every season since season 9 (or in hard-core fan terms, “all the seasons except the really great ones”) tells how his Simpsons connections gave him the perfect set-up for revenge on one of those snobby “I don’t even own a TV set” types. It’s as close as any show-business person is going to get, in real life, to Woody Allen’s trick of producing Marshall McCluhan to tell off a pretentious film snob.

All of Pynchon’s eternal themes and quirks are on display, including paranoia, wretchedly named characters and endless pop culture references