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Entropy
"Entropy is extremely significant for students of Pynchon in that it provides us with an early peak into the development of the author's thought in terms of ideas which reappear as themes in later works. Many concepts which play a key role throughout the bulk of Pynchon's fiction can be found here in various stages of infancy. For example, the notion of entropy itself is reexamined and more deeply probed in both V. and the Crying of Lot 49. Another Saul's wife is "bugged by the idea of computers acting like people": Pynchon years later probes the boundaries of `acting like' and `being' through the development of his theme concerning the Animate vs. the Inanimate in V. In fact, in V. we find robots acting like people and vice Miriam would be "bugged" to no end had she been included in this novel as well. Pynchon's discussion of Noise vs. Signal in terms of communication theory and information transfer strongly carries through to a number of his later works, most importantly The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow. Sandor Rojas' conditioned behavior when a woman walks into the room is set in motion by certain cues "like a contralto voice or a whiff of Arpege." He is described as salivating like Pavlov's later, in Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon intimately works with Pavlovian notions and theories concerning conditioned behavior with regard to the major character of Tyrone Slothrop. Music, too, utilized as the general metaphor throughout "Entropy," constantly asserts itself as a recurring motif all the way across the spectrum of Pynchon's work, as does the setting used here in "" ridiculously intense parties lasting not hours but days if not weeks and months, as is the case with, among others, Mondaugen's story in V." (from Pynchon criticized the story in "Slow Learner' as overwritten and too conceptual. 16 pages.
First published January 1, 1960
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About the author
Thomas Pynchon
52Ìýbooks7,014ÌýfollowersThomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. 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. National Book Award for Fiction.
Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), and Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Rumors of a historical novel about Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had circulated as early as the 1980s; the novel, Mason & Dixon, was published in 1997 to critical acclaim. His 2009 novel Inherent Vice was adapted into a feature film by Paul Thomas Anderson in 2014. Pynchon is notoriously reclusive from the media; few photographs of him have been published, and rumors about his location and identity have circulated since the 1960s. Pynchon's most recent novel, Bleeding Edge, was published on September 17, 2013.
Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), and Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Rumors of a historical novel about Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had circulated as early as the 1980s; the novel, Mason & Dixon, was published in 1997 to critical acclaim. His 2009 novel Inherent Vice was adapted into a feature film by Paul Thomas Anderson in 2014. Pynchon is notoriously reclusive from the media; few photographs of him have been published, and rumors about his location and identity have circulated since the 1960s. Pynchon's most recent novel, Bleeding Edge, was published on September 17, 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
October 7, 2024
i experienced entropy just by reading this
November 2, 2017
The second time I read this I enjoyed it more, but it is, as Thomas Pynchon admits in his introduction to Slow Learner an amateurish effort reveling in its own cleverness. Nevertheless, Thomas Pynchon reveling in his own cleverness is still worth reading, and there were some worthwhile passages here and there.
The ultimate message of the story is that although entropy will take all in the end, we can do some things to restore order to our little pocket of the universe. We can fix the refrigerator, and rescue the drowning girl in the bathtub. However its foolishness to think we can isolate ourselves like Callisto and Aubade in our own personal climate controlled jungle, impervious to the outside world.
That theme is hammered bluntly into your mind in this story, everything is working on a fairly obvious line of symbolism, and nothing here can be enjoyed except on a metaphorical level.
Right now I'm reading Pynchon's "Against the Day" which is shaping up to be perhaps the best book I've ever read, and its astounding how, even though he has matured so much over the years since he wrote this story, the seeds of what makes his writing so magical are still evident. He's a truly unique author, committed to his own peculiar blend of pop culture and nerd culture (along with plenty of science and drugs along the way.)
Reading Borges really ruins you for enjoying poor short stories though. This wasn't exactly poor so much as underachieving. It's a cute idea, and competently executed, but it puts theme over character and forgets about plot entirely. Its worth reading for the humor and the well-written ending.
The ultimate message of the story is that although entropy will take all in the end, we can do some things to restore order to our little pocket of the universe. We can fix the refrigerator, and rescue the drowning girl in the bathtub. However its foolishness to think we can isolate ourselves like Callisto and Aubade in our own personal climate controlled jungle, impervious to the outside world.
That theme is hammered bluntly into your mind in this story, everything is working on a fairly obvious line of symbolism, and nothing here can be enjoyed except on a metaphorical level.
Right now I'm reading Pynchon's "Against the Day" which is shaping up to be perhaps the best book I've ever read, and its astounding how, even though he has matured so much over the years since he wrote this story, the seeds of what makes his writing so magical are still evident. He's a truly unique author, committed to his own peculiar blend of pop culture and nerd culture (along with plenty of science and drugs along the way.)
Reading Borges really ruins you for enjoying poor short stories though. This wasn't exactly poor so much as underachieving. It's a cute idea, and competently executed, but it puts theme over character and forgets about plot entirely. Its worth reading for the humor and the well-written ending.
January 22, 2021
drunk on american black coffee and french bread
April 30, 2019
what was this
Read
May 6, 2025Well this was chaotic
May 28, 2017
A destructive, aphrodisiacal short story. I fell in love with Pynchon right here, as the glass shards rained down, speeding toward collapse. I've shelved V, and kept Gravity's Rainbow in mind.
May 29, 2018
I had to read this for Uni and I have to say that I am a bit confused. The writing style is very metaphorical - in fact everything in this book is metaphorical - and you really need to think about everything in order to follow the story.
the scientific parts were a bit harder to follow for someone who as no idea of all of it but it doesn't prevent from understanding the story.
Meatball's choice between a) and b) was very thoughtful (compared to Callisto), you can try to fix some small things, it will be better in the long run, than to isolate yourself and wait, even though entropy will come at some point and destroy everything.
Interesting metaphore of the bird as well.
I hope that after studying it in class, I will get to understand more of it because now I am affraid that there are too many things that I missed.
Maybe also a reflection on the names of the characters : meatball (what kind of name is that ??), Aubade is in French - I think- a piece of music that should be played at dawn, and Callisto comes from Greek for "the most beautiful".
In any case, this was a very interesting read and I think the themes evoqued in this shortstory are still quite relevant today
the scientific parts were a bit harder to follow for someone who as no idea of all of it but it doesn't prevent from understanding the story.
Meatball's choice between a) and b) was very thoughtful (compared to Callisto), you can try to fix some small things, it will be better in the long run, than to isolate yourself and wait, even though entropy will come at some point and destroy everything.
Interesting metaphore of the bird as well.
I hope that after studying it in class, I will get to understand more of it because now I am affraid that there are too many things that I missed.
Maybe also a reflection on the names of the characters : meatball (what kind of name is that ??), Aubade is in French - I think- a piece of music that should be played at dawn, and Callisto comes from Greek for "the most beautiful".
In any case, this was a very interesting read and I think the themes evoqued in this shortstory are still quite relevant today
Read
December 16, 2022a mostly unintelligible fever-dream.
"And as every good Romantic knows, the soul (spiritus, ruach, pneuma) is nothing, substantially, but air; it is only natural that warpings in the atmosphere should be recapitulated in those who breathe it."
"Tell a girl: 'I love you.' No trouble with two-thirds of that, it's a closed circuit. Just you and she. But that nasty four-letter word in the middle, that's the one you have to look out for. Ambiguity. Redundance. Irrelevance, even. Leakage. All this noise. Noise screws up your signal, makes for disorganization in the circuit."
"And as every good Romantic knows, the soul (spiritus, ruach, pneuma) is nothing, substantially, but air; it is only natural that warpings in the atmosphere should be recapitulated in those who breathe it."
"Tell a girl: 'I love you.' No trouble with two-thirds of that, it's a closed circuit. Just you and she. But that nasty four-letter word in the middle, that's the one you have to look out for. Ambiguity. Redundance. Irrelevance, even. Leakage. All this noise. Noise screws up your signal, makes for disorganization in the circuit."
July 27, 2015
I think it's worth reading this story as it showcases early Pynchon style and narrative approach. Get a bit of Pynchon without having to wade through the seriously difficult stuff. Great subject for a story anyway....and beautiful description of a bird being held and cared for. Heat transfer to keep the bird alive, in metaphor I suppose. To avoid chaos and entropy.
Shelved as 'fic-guided'
July 4, 2020The academic George Levine once wrote an article describing how he had taken three months off from university teaching to read, in hermit-like isolation, Thomas Pynchon’s magnum opus, Gravity’s Rainbow. By which calculus five hundred novels � if reading as conscientious as Prof. Levine’s lay behind them � would require a hundred or so years in the hermit’s cave. Nonsense, of course. Most novels require hours, not months. Pynchon, though, is something else. Even his shortest novel, The Crying of Lot 49, is � to use the favoured euphemism � ‘challenging� (i.e. like eating brazils without a nutcracker). What the notoriously incommunicative Pynchon is on about in his fiction is the stuff of 1,001 doctoral dissertations and pandemoniac conferences. But it’s generally agreed that somewhere in the engine room of his novels are two energy sources: paranoia and entropy.
Paranoia is a wonderfully creative mental disorder. Everything, for the paranoiac, is narrative. A glance from a stranger indicates the CIA are hot on your trail. In Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway the shell-shocked paranoiac Septimus Smith believes the pigeons in Regent’s Park are talking to him (in Greek). In her paranoid state, Muriel Spark believed that T. S. Eliot was sending her messages in his verse plays. He gravely wrote to reassure her that he wasn’t.
Entropy, energy loss, is something else. When you start, say, a novel it winds down (losing energy) to its final page, like a pre-digital watch. Everything tends inexorably towards terminal equilibrium. Everything, put another way, breaks down. The entropic idea was popularised by Henry Adams and reformulated in a book influential on Thomas Pynchon, Norbert Wiener’s book on cybernetics and society, The Human Use of Human Beings. What can rewind the clock? Paranoia. But paranoia is ultrafictional. Madness. At the beginning of Gravity’s Rainbow, set in London in 1944, the hero is convinced that V2 rockets fall wherever and whenever he has an erection. Makes perfect sense. If you’re paranoid. Pynchon laid out his cards in his early short story ‘Entropy�, first published in the Kenyon Review in 1960, and republished (after he became world famous) in 1984 in a collection called, self-disparagingly, Slow Learner. The story opens with an epigraph from Henry Miller, ‘The Weather will not Change.� Paradoxically breaking weather � breaking everything (‘disequilibrium�) � will be the theme of the story.
In Manhattan, Meatball Mulligan is having a ‘lease breaking party� fuelled by a plentiful intake of booze and dope. It is early February, and the weather is breaking. The party is in its fortieth hour and breaking up. Sandor Rojas � Hungarian freedom fighter and refugee virtuoso of Don Juanism, a serial heart-breaker � is one of the more prominent guests. A musical group, the Duke di Angelis Quartet, is also in attendance. The musical among the company discuss such topics as whether the Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker quartet’s dispensing with the piano is a breakthrough, or just a broken concept. A neighbour, Saul, who has just had an argument with his wife Miriam, breaks in through the window. Their argument, improbably, was about communication systems (another of Pynchon’s hobbyhorses) and the ‘disorganising� impacts of ‘noise� (things coming in through windows) on circuits, breaking them down. It’s ‘sort of wet out�, Saul reports.
The party breaks up into chaos. Five sailors, on liberty leave, break in thinking the apartment is a ‘hoorhouse�. A fight ensues. The refrigerator breaks down. Meatball contrives, temporarily, to cool things down. But the party will never return to what it was forty hours earlier � disequilibrium decrees that. Meanwhile, upstairs, a Princetonian graduate called Callisto has created what he fondly hopes is a ‘closed system� � a hermetically sealed apartment, with his partner Aubade (‘daybreak�). He clutches a dying bird to his chest, in the hope that ‘heat transfer� will bring it back to life. It dies. Callisto breaks a window, and the inside and outside temperatures equalise at thirty-seven degrees (coincidentally the temperature of human blood in a living organism). The story ends. Or, put another way, having broken up, it winds down.
Paranoia is a wonderfully creative mental disorder. Everything, for the paranoiac, is narrative. A glance from a stranger indicates the CIA are hot on your trail. In Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway the shell-shocked paranoiac Septimus Smith believes the pigeons in Regent’s Park are talking to him (in Greek). In her paranoid state, Muriel Spark believed that T. S. Eliot was sending her messages in his verse plays. He gravely wrote to reassure her that he wasn’t.
Entropy, energy loss, is something else. When you start, say, a novel it winds down (losing energy) to its final page, like a pre-digital watch. Everything tends inexorably towards terminal equilibrium. Everything, put another way, breaks down. The entropic idea was popularised by Henry Adams and reformulated in a book influential on Thomas Pynchon, Norbert Wiener’s book on cybernetics and society, The Human Use of Human Beings. What can rewind the clock? Paranoia. But paranoia is ultrafictional. Madness. At the beginning of Gravity’s Rainbow, set in London in 1944, the hero is convinced that V2 rockets fall wherever and whenever he has an erection. Makes perfect sense. If you’re paranoid. Pynchon laid out his cards in his early short story ‘Entropy�, first published in the Kenyon Review in 1960, and republished (after he became world famous) in 1984 in a collection called, self-disparagingly, Slow Learner. The story opens with an epigraph from Henry Miller, ‘The Weather will not Change.� Paradoxically breaking weather � breaking everything (‘disequilibrium�) � will be the theme of the story.
In Manhattan, Meatball Mulligan is having a ‘lease breaking party� fuelled by a plentiful intake of booze and dope. It is early February, and the weather is breaking. The party is in its fortieth hour and breaking up. Sandor Rojas � Hungarian freedom fighter and refugee virtuoso of Don Juanism, a serial heart-breaker � is one of the more prominent guests. A musical group, the Duke di Angelis Quartet, is also in attendance. The musical among the company discuss such topics as whether the Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker quartet’s dispensing with the piano is a breakthrough, or just a broken concept. A neighbour, Saul, who has just had an argument with his wife Miriam, breaks in through the window. Their argument, improbably, was about communication systems (another of Pynchon’s hobbyhorses) and the ‘disorganising� impacts of ‘noise� (things coming in through windows) on circuits, breaking them down. It’s ‘sort of wet out�, Saul reports.
The party breaks up into chaos. Five sailors, on liberty leave, break in thinking the apartment is a ‘hoorhouse�. A fight ensues. The refrigerator breaks down. Meatball contrives, temporarily, to cool things down. But the party will never return to what it was forty hours earlier � disequilibrium decrees that. Meanwhile, upstairs, a Princetonian graduate called Callisto has created what he fondly hopes is a ‘closed system� � a hermetically sealed apartment, with his partner Aubade (‘daybreak�). He clutches a dying bird to his chest, in the hope that ‘heat transfer� will bring it back to life. It dies. Callisto breaks a window, and the inside and outside temperatures equalise at thirty-seven degrees (coincidentally the temperature of human blood in a living organism). The story ends. Or, put another way, having broken up, it winds down.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 21, 2025
This book was good. I enjoyed the dialogue and the metaphors, while not being anything particularly revolutionary, I was impressed by the way Pynchon used Entropy to explain the dynamics between two characters: Meatball has physical chaos, and Callisto has mental chaos.
Each slowly decent out of equilibrium, and while Meatball is able to take action, at first nervous and uncertain if be can solve the chaos- ends up resolving tensions & calming the party goers with compassion.
Callisto on the other hand, is stuck, he holds a dying bird closely, representing feelings of the modernist world, dying and changing.
This, I believe encompasses his fears of being unable to alter what he thinks is a fixed outcome.
However, Aubade is able to take action for him, smashing the window, causing Callisto to feel the outside temperature, and entropy seeps in.
The writing style certainly is an acquired taste, and while it took me some time to get with the dialog style, looking more into it- I enjoyed it a lot. The playful style of how characters-while brief- speak with each other and process the chaos, was amusing and shows a side to post modernism many enjoy.
I don’t regret my time reading the story, but it definitely needs more time to grow on me. I enjoyed it a lot, but I don’t know if I want to give it four stars, I said I might, but Im unsure! Three stars is my happy medium rating- it means I enjoyed the book for what it is, not bad, not astounding, just good for what it is.
I think it will stay at three stars:-).
Each slowly decent out of equilibrium, and while Meatball is able to take action, at first nervous and uncertain if be can solve the chaos- ends up resolving tensions & calming the party goers with compassion.
Callisto on the other hand, is stuck, he holds a dying bird closely, representing feelings of the modernist world, dying and changing.
This, I believe encompasses his fears of being unable to alter what he thinks is a fixed outcome.
However, Aubade is able to take action for him, smashing the window, causing Callisto to feel the outside temperature, and entropy seeps in.
The writing style certainly is an acquired taste, and while it took me some time to get with the dialog style, looking more into it- I enjoyed it a lot. The playful style of how characters-while brief- speak with each other and process the chaos, was amusing and shows a side to post modernism many enjoy.
I don’t regret my time reading the story, but it definitely needs more time to grow on me. I enjoyed it a lot, but I don’t know if I want to give it four stars, I said I might, but Im unsure! Three stars is my happy medium rating- it means I enjoyed the book for what it is, not bad, not astounding, just good for what it is.
I think it will stay at three stars:-).
February 11, 2025
Short story of the mysterious genius legend Thomas Pynchon. Similar to my experience of The Crying of Lot 49 except a bit more accessible. The Great American Novel podcast again helping my appreciation, giving a better grasp of his methods and purposes in general. Spurts of the text I don’t understand or appreciate much, like a joke I’m not in on, but others strike me with brilliance in their poetry and scope of pondering. Super post-modern all in all but appreciable with a bit of a guiding hand. Makes me want to read one of his works with a companion explanatory text.
This one’s general import was easy to follow and appreciable. The issue is a perception of, and registering the theoretical significance of, the law of entropy in the universe. There is a couple which tries to keep a sanctuary in their apartment, looking to stave off the reality of entropy outside. There is an apartment below in which social entropy has invaded. Entropy can be feared and cocooned against, however it is invading society presently, dissolving social life into debauchery and emptying art as portrayed here. Pynchon says entropy, while being the source of chaos, however is also necessary for motion and the transference of heat. And therefore also makes love possible. One may cocoon against it in despair, but one would do better to get to work, going about within it doing good.
This one’s general import was easy to follow and appreciable. The issue is a perception of, and registering the theoretical significance of, the law of entropy in the universe. There is a couple which tries to keep a sanctuary in their apartment, looking to stave off the reality of entropy outside. There is an apartment below in which social entropy has invaded. Entropy can be feared and cocooned against, however it is invading society presently, dissolving social life into debauchery and emptying art as portrayed here. Pynchon says entropy, while being the source of chaos, however is also necessary for motion and the transference of heat. And therefore also makes love possible. One may cocoon against it in despair, but one would do better to get to work, going about within it doing good.
February 18, 2023
as someone who has dabbled in an unfortunate measure of political philosophy, I will always appreciate pynchon's engineer-brained takes on political issues, especially since his tendency to side with 60s drug culture's suspicion of power and authority is something I find sympathetic. There's also some very silly and funny stuff in here
Ultimately, it's a short story comparing a sort of modernist way of thinking with a more postmodern approach, via two parallel scenes in an apartment. the despair brought on by the modernist approach and the sense of relief at its formal collapse via the situation is palpable, and I'm always happy for an excuse to scoff at the cynical "heat death of the universe" type perspectives which are so obsessed with this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in their own thought that they can't even see beyond the window
In other words, it's a clever satirical take on what remain to this day as common worldviews and hints at ideas Pynchon will unpack in some of his later writing. it's one of those "what's different about these two pictures" type of stories, like you used to get in the newspaper. good stuff
Ultimately, it's a short story comparing a sort of modernist way of thinking with a more postmodern approach, via two parallel scenes in an apartment. the despair brought on by the modernist approach and the sense of relief at its formal collapse via the situation is palpable, and I'm always happy for an excuse to scoff at the cynical "heat death of the universe" type perspectives which are so obsessed with this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in their own thought that they can't even see beyond the window
In other words, it's a clever satirical take on what remain to this day as common worldviews and hints at ideas Pynchon will unpack in some of his later writing. it's one of those "what's different about these two pictures" type of stories, like you used to get in the newspaper. good stuff
November 14, 2019
Upstairs/Downstairs. A couple on the top floor ponders existence and how the universe will end. On the bottom floor a chaotic lease breaking party that's part Marx Brothers and part Animal House. Both of these worlds/ecosystems are in crisis, one comical and the other tragic. There's talk of jazz, modernism, Pavlov, information theory, thermodynamics, cosmology, meteorology, botany, relationships, AI, life in 50s DC, and on how to restore order to your nervous system.
July 17, 2019
A very confusing and strange read.
I struggled to keep up with the narrative, but it went over my head several times (actually, I had no idea what was going on with the bird and the science talk upstairs).
I struggled to keep up with the narrative, but it went over my head several times (actually, I had no idea what was going on with the bird and the science talk upstairs).
January 9, 2021
This is like the best thing ever it is so good. Classic Pynchon shit. Great short read about the heat death of the universe. Someone almost drowns in the shower because she sat on the drain. Brilliant. Pynchon baby.
November 5, 2020
“Entropy� by Thomas Pynchon.
Peculiar flow of rotating contexts within the same house party. Obviously, a fascinating author. ***
Peculiar flow of rotating contexts within the same house party. Obviously, a fascinating author. ***
July 30, 2021
Holden Caulfield says Thomas Pynchon is a phony! I mean, some character in this story mentions Boltzman’s constant and we’re all supposed to fall to our knees and worship the author.
September 3, 2021
Reading this story felt like being part of a group that keeps talking, not caring enough to include you in the discussion.
April 6, 2022
it was cute…pero like i was confused and had to give it another read and look up explanations online…which is kinda a given for works like this. i liked the character name meatball mulligan tho�
January 7, 2023
If I was to read this short story in school, I would've hated it. But finding it on accident and picking it up was enjoyable! I didn't care for the dialogue, but the description was great!
February 26, 2023
I can see the plot there, I wasn't just too down with the voluminous references and topic opaqueness.
Read
March 17, 2023I do not know what to rate this but 37 degrees will forever haunt me
September 18, 2023
I'm obsessed with this story. But, I need to read it a couple more times to fully understand everything, because I read it in English, and it was a bit hard. But - still obsessed in some odd way.
March 22, 2024
Interesting short story! Super detailed in some parts but it kept me entertained!
September 2, 2024
read it during my undergrad class on extraterrestrial life
Read
November 22, 2024Feels like a mix of Vonnegut and a Seinfeld episode.
January 2, 2025
This is one I read twice and still didn't get fully... maybe I need to return to Pynchon in the future lol
February 13, 2024
Okaaayyyy three day bender!!!
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