For Thomas Pynchon, the characteristic features of late capitalism--the rise of the military-industrial complex, consumerism, bureaucratization and specialization in the workplace, standardization at all levels of social life, and the growing influence of the mass media--all point to a transformation in the way human beings experience time and duration. Focusing on Pynchon's novels as representative artifacts of the postwar period, Stefan Mattessich analyzes this temporal transformation in relation not only to Pynchon's work but also to its literary, cultural, and theoretical...

For Thomas Pynchon, the characteristic features of late capitalism--the rise of the military-industrial complex, consumerism, bureaucratization and specialization in the workplace, standardization at all levels of social life, and the growing influence of the mass media--all point to a transformation in the way human beings experience time and duration. Focusing on Pynchon's novels as representative artifacts of the postwar period, Stefan Mattessich analyzes this temporal transformation in relation not only to Pynchon's work but also to its literary, cultural, and theoretical...