Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.

After graduating from high school in 1953 at the age of 16 Pynchon studied engineering physics at Cornell University but left at the end of his second year to serve in the U. In 1958 Pynchon and Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale wrote part or all of a science-fiction musical Minstrel Island which portrayed a dystopian future in which IBM rules the world (Gibbs 1994). In 1957 he returned to Cornell to pursue a degree in English.

After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. Hailing from Long Island Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University.