Pynchon's "Against the Day" is finally coming out in Russian — a 1,232-page universe

I'd been following the rumors about the rights and the translation for several years, and here it is: Azbuka is publishing Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day" in a translation by Maxim Nemtsov. It's the author's longest novel — 1,232 pages — first published in English in 2006.

Over at Gorky, Stanislav Raspechenko lays out in detail what to expect. The story spans roughly 1893 to the 1920s: from the Chicago World's Fair to the First World War. Around two hundred characters, family lines of miners and inventors, an occult detective story, and, on their own, the Chums of Chance aboard the airship Inconvenience, who give the book an almost adventure-novel air.

What I especially love is how the text brings together the Second Industrial Revolution, anarchism, Tesla and Edison's "war of the currents," the Michelson–Morley experiment, and even the Tunguska event. And yet, compared to "Gravity's Rainbow," it seems easier to read — and that, the reviewer writes, is exactly the trap: the endings don't fit together into a neat puzzle.

If you've been missing "that" ambitious Pynchon, and not just adaptations like "One Battle After Another," autumn 2026 is a good moment to pick up a thick volume and take your time.

Source: Gorky