Against the Day

by Thomas Pynchon · 2006

Against the Day is a sprawling novel by Thomas Pynchon that spans the era between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I. It moves across continents—from Colorado labor strikes to New York, London, Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia during the Tunguska event, revolutionary Mexico, post‑war Paris, and silent‑era Hollywood—mixing historical events with fantastical elements. The massive cast includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, magicians, spies, detectives and hired guns, with cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi and Groucho Marx. The novel blends literary, historical and speculative fiction, noted for its humor, encyclopedic scope and Pynchon's characteristic paranoia.