Rise of the living dead in Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland”

Francisco Collado-Rodríguez

doi:10.18172/jes.2858

Autores/as

Francisco Collado-Rodríguez Universidad de Zaragoza http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2922-9194

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.2858

Palabras clave:

Pensamiento categórico, medio excluido, Pynchon, "Vineland", muertos vivientes, Thanatoids.

Resumen

Este artículo ofrece una revisión de la viabilidad que la revelación contra el pensamiento categórico que recibe Oedipa Maas en la segunda novela de Pynchon adquiere en Vineland. Tras dos décadas, la búsqueda del medio excluido se adivina ya como muy problemática en un contexto en el que las revoluciones sociales de los años sesenta han sido derrotadas. Para cuestionar tal viabilidad Pynchon ironiza en Vineland sobre la noción de equilibrio a través del popular icono de los muertos vivientes (los Thanatoids). A la vez corrobora que, como predijo en su segunda novela, el simulacro ha invadido la California de los años ochenta, propiciando la vuelta de ideologías conservadoras. Su nuevo icono se complementa con el uso del realismo mágico, potenciando aún más las dudas sobre la posibilidad de alcanzar la revelación anti-categórica. Así, los muertos vivientes se convierten en un icono intratextual que pone en duda las esperanzas de cambio social existentes en la segunda novela de Pynchon.

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Biografía del autor/a

Francisco Collado-Rodríguez, Universidad de Zaragoza

Francisco Collado-Rodríguez is Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). He has written extensively on the influence of fantasy, myth, and scientific discourse on recent American fiction. He has published on authors such as Thomas Pynchon, Bharati Mukherjee, Kurt Vonnegut, E. L. Doctorow, Bobbie Ann Mason, Cormac McCarthy, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Jonathan Safran Foer among others.

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