Thomas Pynchon is an American writer, as well as a running gag in American intellectual life, based in the Quaternions whose dense and impenetrable canon of books signals the end of everything that is good or legible in American fiction. Pynchon is also commonly agreed upon as the #1 name dropped by assholes attempting to look brainy. Born in 1937, he served his country during World War II by firing v-2 rockets out of his infant penis. Thomas Pynchon is a complex, prestigious writer. Also, he's fucking batshit insane.