Thomas Pynchon: V. (Paperback, 2005, Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
Paperback, 533 pages
English language
Published July 5, 2005 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
V. is the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Whole Sick Crew, and the quest of an aging traveler named Herbert Stencil to identify and locate the mysterious entity he knows only as "V." It was nominated for a National Book Award.
The end stuck the landing really well on this one. Liked it a lot for very early Pynchon - you could really feel the formulations of ideas used with his later works, albeit these are a bit more scattery.
