/lit/ - Literature

S03E012: Pine Barrens

Things really kick off in the penultimate episode of the third season, when old man Joyce is so infatuated with his current mistress that he asks Dave and Tom to carry out a basic errand for him, but things take a turn for the worse when the ex-KGB agent they visit acts a little bit too flippant for Dave's liking, who talks too fast for the Russian to understand and takes everything he says too literally, and a hilarious fight scene ensues in which Tom ends up saving Dave from being choked to death by choking the Russian with a metal bar until submission. Realising they accidentally killed the best friend of Joyce's high finance offshore hedge fund manager located in Zurich, they set off to Pine Barrens to dispose of the body. However, things go from bad to worse when the supposedly dead ex-KGB agent escapes, and Joyce tells Tom and Dave they're being pursued by sixteen Czechan separatists, and our two favourite protagonists find themselves lost in the woods at night, with Dave making desperate efforts to turn the whole ordeal into some sort of meta Blair Witch Project performance art.

Guest starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, and Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter.

Thomas Pynchon is not a recluse, he just subscribes to Barthes' Death of the Author. His absence in public life is basically just a piece of performance art.