Backup copies of would-be postings

[John M. Krafft]

Dear Jody:

Here are two items I found on News today.  I tried forwarding them directly to
Pynchon-L from inside News, but I'm not sure they have gotten or will get
through.  They seem worth posting, not least because I also think _Vineland_ owes
a good deal to _Neuromancer_.  (Stuart Moulthrop may have a thing or two to say
on the subject too.)  So would you mind posting this for me?  I'd have sent it
directly to P-L, but then if my original messages did/do get through, it would
be, perhaps annoyingly, redundant.

When I forwarded the second, follow-up item (or launched it into the electronic
void at least), I noted that I don't have time to keep up with the sometimes
fascinating, often tedious, always interminable postings in News.  It's possible,
even likely, that many items that would be of interest to list subscribers come
and go unremarked.  Is anyone out there a News junky?  Or is there some way to
monitor the subjects of postings automatically?  Or might Pynchon-L join News and
set up some sort of automatic cross-referencing scheme?

                                      ***

X-News: miavx2 alt.cyberpunk:386
From: TRINGHAM at usmv01.usm.uni-muenchen.de (Tringham, Neal)
Subject:Is Thomas Pynchon Gibson's Secret Love-Child?
Date: 18 Feb 92 22:03:45 GMT
Message-ID:<1992Feb18.220345.20640 at news.lrz-muenchen.de>

Did anyone else who read _Vineland_ feel that it was uncannily like
Gibson's Sprawl stories? Granted most of _Vineland_ is about the sixties,
but the parts set in the eighties included 1) Ninjas, 
2) Big, menacing Japanese corporations, 3) Hits carried out on
behalf of said corporations by means of martial arts and hi-tech (I was
particularly impressed by the mid-air plane-jacking sequence...), 
4) computers, 5) terrifying subterraenean paragovernmental organisations 
(admittedly this is hardly something new for Pynchon) and 6) the 
`commodification' of the world (notably the way that every film title 
given in the book is followed by its year of initial release in brackets). 

Does this mean that 
1) There _really was_ an eighties zeitgeist, and Gibson and Pynchon both caught
it? (along with, perhaps, Ridley Scott, since I think Gibson claims never
to have seen _Blade Runner_ before writing the first Sprawl stories, even
though it predates them)
2) The `real eighties' (as seen by Gibson) are simply the inevitable result
of what Pynchon saw coming in the sixties (now _there's_ a nasty thought
for you)?
3) Pynchon reads Gibson?
4) None of the above?

Any comments? I was also intrigued, incidentally, by the way in which every 
review of _Vineland_ I saw concentrated on the sixties parts, and not a
thing was said about Pynchon on the eighties... (it's a conspiracy, I tell
you!)

Neal Tringham

                                      ***

X-News: miavx2 alt.cyberpunk:404
From: williams at herky.cs.uiowa.edu (Kent Williams)
Subject:Re: Is Thomas Pynchon Gibson's Secret Love-Child?
Date: 20 Feb 92 14:54:44 GMT
Message-ID:<10963 at ns-mx.uiowa.edu>

>From article <EVENSON.92Feb19234741 at jabberwock.hitl.washington.edu>, by evenson@
hitl.washington.edu (Mark Evenson):
> In article <1992Feb18.220345.20640 at news.lrz-muenchen.de>
> TRINGHAM at usmv01.usm.uni-muenchen.de (Tringham, Neal) writes:
> 
>    Did anyone else who read _Vineland_ feel that it was uncannily like
>    Gibson's Sprawl stories? Granted most of _Vineland_ is about the sixties,

I would guess that reading Pynchon was a major influence on Gibson in terms
of tone, if not content.  'Gravity's Rainbow' is about the second world
war being a side effect of the maneuverings of Multinationals.

In fact nearly every icon of cyberpunk lit shows up in Gravity's Rainbow.
Man-machine interfacing, exotic drugs, ultraviolence, sex, multinational
corporations, etc.  All that's missing is Cyberspace.  And luckily, Gibson
et al have chosen not to include any coprophilia in their books.

As to whether 'Vineland' was in turn influenced by Gibson, we'll never
know.  Pynchon is as famous for being reclusive as he is for his
writing.  When he received the National Book Award for Gravity's
Rainbow, he sent Professor Irwin Corey to accept it for him.  For you
youngsters, Irwin Corey was a comedian whose shtick was impersonating
a disheveled, incoherent college professor, in black suit with
Converse hightops.

It is interesting to note also that when they voted GR for the
National Book Award, there was a controversy among the judges; about
half thought it was a masterpiece, and the other half thought it was
completely unreadable.

--
Kent Williams         | "Do you see your cerebellum as a lightbulb or a cog? I
williams at cs.uiowa.edu | saw mine as gristle so I fed it to the dog. But it 
Quote: Bevis Frond    | taste so bad, that she left it in the bowl ..."

                                      ***

John M. Krafft
jmkrafft at miavx2.ham.muohio.edu  or  jmkrafft at miavx2.bitnet  or
   jmkrafft at mosler.ham.muohio.edu
Miami University~Hamilton
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