More . . .: 2 of 2

[John M. Krafft]

From:	MIAVX2::JMKRAFFT     "John M. Krafft"  4-MAR-1992 17:14:30.65
To:	
CC:	JMKRAFFT    
Subj:	Re: Pynchon and Gibson again (was <none>)

X-News: miavx2 alt.cyberpunk:595
From: TRINGHAM at usmv01.usm.uni-muenchen.de (Tringham, Neal)
Subject:Re: Pynchon and Gibson again (was <none>)
Date: 3 Mar 92 19:44:50 GMT
Message-ID:<1992Mar3.194450.20578 at news.lrz-muenchen.de>

In <1992Mar03.141123.7332 at zds.com> rjdm at zds.com writes:

> Obviously I missed the original article about Gibson and Pynchon.  
> Somebody (Neil Tringham) thought Vineland was similar to Gibson's 
> novels and wondered whether:
> 
> 1) There was an Eighties zeitgeist and Pynchon and Gibson both caught 
>    it;
> 2) The real eighties (as seen by Gibson) are simply the inevitable
>    result of what Pynchon saw coming in the sixties;
> 3) Pynchon reads Gibson; or
> 4) All of the above
> 
> Let's get real, folks.  Obviously, both writers are aware of what's 
> happening in contemporary USA; Gibson extrapolated on a few contemporary 
> ideas for his vision of the future, Pynchon used contemporary society as 
> the backdrop for _Vineland_.  Any writer uses this kind of material.  
> Large corporations, ninja, underground government organizations, 
> "commodification"--you can probably find references to these things in 
> Sidney Sheldon.  Is Sidney Sheldon Gibson's love child?

I haven't read Sheldon, and I doubt I've read a representative sample
of modern American writers. Of those I have seen, Mailer, Oates and Bellow
have nothing like this. Ellis does, to an extent. I _have_ read a (fairly) 
representative sample
of modern British ones, and from all accounts the eighties British society
was pretty close to the eighties American one in a lot of ways. If you can 
find strong `cyberpunk' themes in Rushdie, Carter, Amis fils et al I'll
be impressed. 

> 
> To go further and wonder whether Pynchon gets anything from Gibson--
> smile when you say that, pal.  Let's face it: 
> 
> (sorry, just a second--all you Gibsonites got your flame throwers
> warmed up?  OK, let's proceed.)
> 
> Let's face it: in the grand scheme of Fiction, Pynchon is ten or fifteen 
> times the writer Gibson is--as I'm sure Gibson would admit.  I don't 
> think Pynchon needs to read _Neuromancer_ for inspiration, thank you 
> very much.
> 
> 
> I'd also be willing to bet that Pynchon DOESN'T read Gibson.  Gibson is 
> neither good enough nor bad enough for Pynchon to be interested in.
> 

So Pynchon wouldn't read _Neuromancer_, because he knows Gibson isn't
good enough to be worthy of his time. And he knows Gibson isn't good
(or bad) enough, because... he's read Gibson? Come on. People read the books
that they see good reviews of, that they hear good things about, that they
like the cover pictures on. If Pynchon hangs out with vaguely sixties types
(as you might assume from his politics), then he's likely to have heard
good things about _Neuromancer_, and he's likely to have read it.

Neal Tringham