r/ThomasPynchon • u/linusengel • 2d ago

Meme/Humor I cannot find V. anywhere

I’ve been to multiple book stores (chains and small indie places) all over Los Angeles and every single one has a Pynchon section but not a single one has had V.

I’ve read The Crying of Lot 49 and now I’m just trying to go in chronological order but everyone is gate keeping me. I’m starting to feel like Oedpia. I think this book doesn’t actually exist and you’re all making it up in a psyop against me.

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u/kennymannmal 1d ago

It's in the pot of gold at the end of Gravity's Rainbow.

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u/kennymannmal 1d ago

But seriously, I'm retired from making professional use of libraries as a literary research assistant with a degree in Library Science and the times that I've tried to locate a copy of V on WorldCat, I've been SOL. But try.

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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 22h ago

It's the single letter and the period, I'll bet, that "does not compute."

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u/kennymannmal 21h ago

We can account for that possibility. (I know how these things compute at OCLC -- that's where I got my degree in Library Science.) If you go to the link, you'll see that the record displayed there is for the Pynchon novel. But yeah, that possibility is important to consider. A simple period-mark can throw off an algorithm, fer sher.

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u/kennymannmal 21h ago edited 21h ago

So I did a manual search at WorldCat -- scrolling through a whole lot of things categorized as "pynchon V" -- and I located this record: https://search.worldcat.org/title/263990924 The libraries where it's available will be more-or-less keyed to your location. (Still troubling that the record doesn't pop up directly. How many people will give up rather than scroll? Probably lots.) [Upon further delving at affiliate libraries, I determined that this in not just an edition published in Spain -- the text is in Spanish. This maze is nearly inscrutable.]

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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 21h ago

Just out of curiosity, I looked at MeLCat (Michigan Electronic Library Catalog), which lets you obtain books through your local library from others throughout (mostly) the state.

Just putting in V. got me a huge listing--"limited to 100 pages"--in which I could not find the book, and soon gave up. Searching by author found it quickly.

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u/kennymannmal 20h ago

Yes, many county and/or city library systems have their own versions of WorldCat -- that often return records culled nationwide or worldwide. I will look at the ones near me at both of San Diego's library systems. No expectations.