Sascha Pöhlmann (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
This paper analyzes a pervasive trope in all of Pynchon’s novels that has been unduly neglected by criticism so far: the game. I argue that Pynchon’s use of games, which come in numerous different forms in his novels, can be read as a self-reflexive comment on his fiction, if not fiction in general. This approach allows for a new viewpoint on the problem of whether postmodernist language play necessarily entails political or moral relativism, and it offers one way of reconciling Pynchon’s postmodernist narrative strategies with his political agenda. Games and the discussion of games in Pynchon’s fiction serve to show and tell readers that playing is no idle activity without relevance or effect on the reality outside the game, but that it is rather a mode of engaging the world that has very real consequences even if it seems to occur in its own ontological framework. In short, I argue that Pynchon’s wide-ranging use of games aims at rescuing the language game of fiction and its imaginative play from charges of relativism, irrelevance or being ‘mere play.’
Employing different theoretical approaches such as Wittgensteinian language games, mathematical / sociological game theory and videogame theory in my analysis, I present various ways of theorizing and interpreting games that are directly relevant to the games in Pynchon’s fiction. For example, the highly contested dichotomy in videogame studies between ludology and narratology, or between seeing games as abstract rule systems or as narrative structures – parallels the debate on whether the language experiments of postmodernist fiction are hermetic, non-representational and detached from “reality,” or maintain narrative elements that still relate to a world outside their words. Similarly, Wittgensteinian language games accept linguistic flexibility, play and arbitrary meanings but at the same time maintain the usefulness of language despite these instabilities.
I will address a selection of the most important instances of games and game theory in Pynchon’s novels, trying to give a broader overview while focusing on the most striking instances. These include the allusions to Tetris in Against the Day and their relevance to “The Great Game” of (colonial and cold-war) geopolitics as well as their entropic implications; Paola Maijstral’s “R.A.F.” game in V.; Katje’s Oven-game, the game-behind-the-game of Slothrop’s roulette wheel, Slothrop’s drinking game of Prince, Pökler’s deadly game with Weissmann, the game of Holy-Center-Approaching, Mravenko’s irrational chess, and the (non)iterative rocket strikes in Gravity’s Rainbow; Oedipa’s round of Strip Botticelli with Metzger in The Crying of Lot 49, and the ever-declining poker game; the commercial and political gaming table of “the wide World, lands and seas” in Mason & Dixon, where players are cheating; Zoyd’s pinball game in Vineland; and finally Puck and Einar’s slot machine scams in Las Vegas in Inherent Vice.