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 carry 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 example: 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 versa: 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 dog: 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 "Entropy:" 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.