Occupy Pynchon examines power and resistance in the writer's post-Gravity's Rainbow novels. As Sean Carswell shows, Pynchon's representations of global power after the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s shed the paranoia and meta­physical bent of his first three novels and share a great deal in common with the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's critical trilogy, Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth. In both cases, the authors describe global power as a horizontal network of multinational corporations, national governments, and supranational institutions. Pynchon, as do Hardt and Negri, theorizes resistance as a horizontal network of individuals who work together, without sacrificing their singularities, to resist the political and economic exploitation of empire. Carswell enriches this examination of Pynchon's politics--as made evident in Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009), and Bleeding Edge (2013)--by reading the novels alongside the global resistance movements of the early 2010s. Beginning with the Arab Spring and progressing into the Occupy Movement, political activists engaged in a global uprising. The ensuing struggle mirrored Pynchon's concepts of power and resistance, and Occupy activists in particular constructed their movement around the same philosophical tradition from which Pynchon, as well as Hardt and Negri, emerges. This exploration of Pynchon shines a new light on Pynchon studies, recasting his post-1970s fiction as central to his vision of resisting global neoliberal capitalism.

Occupy Pynchon: Politics after Gravity's Rainbow

Literature & Fiction

Carswell, Sean

History & Criticism

University of Georgia Press

Occupy Pynchon examines power and resistance in the writer's post-Gravity's Rainbow novels. As Sean Carswell shows, Pynchon's representations of global power after the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s shed the paranoia and meta­physical bent of his first three novels and share a great deal in common with the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's critical trilogy, Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth. In both cases, the authors describe global power as a horizontal network of multinational corporations, national governments, and supranational institutions. Pynchon, as do Hardt and Negri, theorizes resistance as a horizontal network of individuals who work together, without sacrificing their singularities, to resist the political and economic exploitation of empire. Carswell enriches this examination of Pynchon's politics-as made evident in Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009), and Bleeding Edge (2013)-by reading the novels alongside the global resistance movements of the early 2010s. Beginning with the Arab Spring and progressing into the Occupy Movement, political activists engaged in a global uprising. The ensuing struggle mirrored Pynchon's concepts of power and resistance, and Occupy activists in particular constructed their movement around the same philosophical tradition from which Pynchon, as well as Hardt and Negri, emerges. This exploration of Pynchon shines a new light on Pynchon studies, recasting his post-1970s fiction as central to his vision of resisting global neoliberal capitalism.

Tortilla Flat Meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: a first novel about America's working class from a founder of Razorcake.

DRINKS FOR THE LITTLE GUY

Arts & Photography

Gorsky Press

"Leave it to the audacious Sean Carswell to crack the code on this secret society of writers, especially after so many other publications (the Believer, Bitch, Vanity Fair) have tried and failed. I'm humbled and grateful to be immortalized in this wily, coltish collection with fellow strummers Flannery, Herman and weird old Uncle Thom."—Pam Houston
"On the surface, Carswell is a literary chameleon, moving effortlessly in and out of voices, genres, and styles, but underneath and above that, he is a born storyteller, always focused on his characters' hearts and minds and fitting ends."—Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
We all know Herman Melville, Jack Kerouac, Thomas Pynchon, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, and Pam Houston. Now meet their metaphysical ukuleles.
Mixing the flair of literary invention with real events in each writer's life—Herman Melville living with a tribe of cannibals; Raymond Chandler holding The Blue Dahlia hostage from Paramount Studios; Flannery O'Connor falling in love; Chester Himes threatening to decapitate his landlord, and many more—Sean Carswell takes the nonfiction of some our most famous writer's lives and turns it into exquisite fiction, with a ukulele thrown in for good measure. At times heartbreaking, at times absurd, the stories in this truly one-of-a-kind collection delightfully blur the line between what is life, and what is literature.
Sean Carswell is the author of the novels Drinks for the Little Guy, Train Wreck Girl, and Madhouse Fog, and the short story collections Barney's Crew and Glue and Ink Rebellion. He co-founded the independent book publisher Gorsky Press and the music magazine Razorcake. He currently teaches writing and literature at California State University, Channel Islands.

The Metaphysical Ukulele

Humor & Satire

Ig Publishing

Dead Extra

After being reported as dead in a German POW camp, Jack Chesley returns to L.A. in 1946 very much alive, only to discover that his wife is dead―and her twin sister insists that it wasn’t an accident like the cops said. They set out to find her killer, a journey that takes them from the boozy back corners of Musso &amp; Frank, to the Camarillo mental hospital, to a seedy motel where blackmailers shoot dirty movies. In the spirit of such noir masters as Cain and Chandler, Dead Extra explores new shadows on the seedy side of midcentury Southern California.

United States

Prospect Park Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carswell, Sean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carswell, Sean

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carswell, Sean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Occupy Pynchon: Politics after Gravity's Rainbow

Occupy Pynchon: Politics after Gravity's Rainbow

DRINKS FOR THE LITTLE GUY

The Metaphysical Ukulele

Dead Extra

Dead Extra