| Encyclopedic novels share several traits: a significantly longer than average length, an extraordinarily complex narrative sometimes involving several hundred characters, and a wealth of references to popular culture both current and past. James Joyce's Ulysses, William Gaddis's The Recognitions, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow organize and convey immense amounts of information in narrative structures that reflect their authors' different conceptions of Godly omniscience. Joyce chooses an arranging presence to depict a world in which all events are understood by God, even if they are incomprehensible to mere mortals. Gaddis, on the other hand, paradoxically structures his novel around the absence of an Arranger. Pynchon, seeking a middle ground, chooses the Rocket, a device with the Godlike capability to shape the destinies of his novel's characters that is a product of human organizations: governments, corporations, and conspiracy cabals. |
