WRITER

Thomas Pynchon

1937 - Today

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Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( PIN-chon, commonly PIN-chən; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon won the 1973 U.S. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Thomas Pynchon has received more than 3,874,252 page views. His biography is available in 61 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 56 in 2019). Thomas Pynchon is the 932nd most popular writer (down from 831st in 2019), the 1,051st most popular biography from United States (down from 973rd in 2019) and the 101st most popular American Writer.

Thomas Pynchon is most famous for his novels "Gravity's Rainbow" and "The Crying of Lot 49".

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.9M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 62.34

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 61

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 4.14

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.27

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The crying of lot 49
V
Against the Day
Against the Day is an epic historical novel by Thomas Pynchon, published in 2006. The narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately following World War I and features more than a hundred characters spread across the United States, Europe, Mexico, Central Asia, and "one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all," according to the book jacket blurb written by Pynchon.
Mason & Dixon
Vineland
Inherent Vice
A darkly comic detective novel set in 1970s California, the plot follows sleuth Larry "Doc" Sportello whose ex-girlfriend asks him to investigate a scheme involving a prominent land developer. Themes of drug culture and counterculture are prominently featured.

Page views of Thomas Pynchons by language

Over the past year Thomas Pynchon has had the most page views in the with 499,255 views, followed by Italian (36,030), and Japanese (33,563). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Bosnian (164.85%), Cornish (82.63%), and Malagasy (63.05%)

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Thomas Pynchon ranks 932 out of 7,302Before him are Vinicius de Moraes, Joost van den Vondel, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, Ann Radcliffe, W. G. Sebald, and Aimé Césaire. After him are Jean de La Bruyère, Mirza Fatali Akhundov, Lafcadio Hearn, Ouyang Xiu, Joyce Carol Oates, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1937, Thomas Pynchon ranks 51Before him are Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Angelo Badalamenti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Roger Zelazny, Robert Huber, and Andrei Konchalovsky. After him are David Hockney, Fernando de la Rúa, Vladimir Arnold, Ferdinand Piëch, Paolo Conte, and Robin Warren.

Others Born in 1937

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Thomas Pynchon ranks 1,051 out of 20,380Before him are Alfred Hershey (1908), Lance Henriksen (1940), Howard H. Aiken (1900), Muddy Waters (1913), Margaret Brown (1867), and Chester Bennington (1976). After him are Edward Norton Lorenz (1917), Gary Sinise (1955), Ed O'Neill (1946), Jack Kirby (1917), Groucho Marx (1890), and Frank B. Kellogg (1856).

Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Thomas Pynchon ranks 101Before him are Roger Zelazny (1937), Sherwood Anderson (1876), L. Ron Hubbard (1911), Walter Lippmann (1889), Thomas Wolfe (1900), and Clifford D. Simak (1904). After him are Joyce Carol Oates (1938), Nellie Bly (1864), James Jones (1921), L. Frank Baum (1856), Virginia Satir (1916), and Stephen Covey (1932).