Pynchon’s New Cryptofiction

Most people have heard the rumors about alligators-in-the-sewers, in large part, because of Thomas Pynchon’s 1963 novel, V.

Pynchon wrote of the cute little pet alligators purchased as Florida souvenirs, eventually discarded, then growing and reproducing in the sewers of New York City. Moving through the underground system, Pynchon told us, they were big, blind, albino, and fed off rats and sewage. Pynchon envisioned an Alligator Patrol going into the depths of the sewers, working in teams of two, with one man holding a flashlight while the other carried a twelve-gauge repeating shotgun. As no one before him had, Thomas Pynchon wove the rumor of alligators-in-the-sewers through the fabric of his fascinating work of fiction. But where does Pynchon’s fiction end and fact begin?

This is how I open my section on alligators-in-the-sewers in Mysterious America. I would give the answer in terms of what really was said to have happened in the 1930s, stories that Pynchon seemed to have known about.

It always seemed to me that Pynchon has been a Fortean at heart, and maybe even displayed some interest in cryptozoology. I think his reappearance with this book on November 21, 2006, suggests we can now add some of his works to the growing shelf of cryptofiction. Pynchon’s newest novel Against the Day seems obviously to be worth a look.

Fiction
A Literary Legend Returns, Brainy and Bizarre as Ever
Against the Day
Thomas Pynchon; Penguin $35

Abominable Snowman, call your agent. A mysterious Arctic creature – ghost, god, yeti, take your pick – also makes a cameo appearance in Against the Day, the first novel in nearly a decade from the literary icon Thomas Pynchon. But hey: With nearly 1,100 pages to fill and a plot that begins with a "hydrogen skyship" landing at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and ends with said skyship decked out with parrots and palm trees and functioning as a kind of airborne Fantasy Island, well, why not? You will either adore this book or kick it across the room, but that’s Pynchon: playful, exasperating, unsettling, enlightening at every corner and baffling in between, a wobbly genius with the frightening ability to turn the world inside out.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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