Herman and Weisenburger put the novel's abiding questions about freedom in context with sixties struggles against war, restricted speech rights, ethno-racial oppression, environmental degradation, and subtle new means of social and psychological control.

LUC HERMAN is a professor of English and narrative theory at the University of Antwerp. He is the coauthor of Handbook of Narrative Analysis with Bart Vervaeck and the coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon with Inger Dalsgaard and Brian McHale.