Is Tom Real?

[Bill Baker]

>One possible clue:  When I mentioned to a former professor of mine the
>then-new (and still-funny) theory that Pynchon was actually J.D. Salinger,
>he replied, "Then who was I playing soccer with after classes at Cornell?"
>
>--Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN

Easily explained: he was a simulacra of Pynchonness, and therefore more
real than an actual Pynchon.  Your professor's insistence that he dealt
with an actual Pynchon is evidence of his failure to reify his subjectivist
Weltshaaung.  He needs to create for himself a space in which all possible
soccer adversaries can exist in tension with Pynchontext.

Why did Derrida cross the road?  He didn't, the opposite sidewalk came to
him, except that it crumbled into gravel in the process.

BTW, I'm giving a presentation on _GR_ for my postmodern crit. grad seminar
and if anyone has any interesting cites for journal articles attacking (I
use the word advisedly) Pynchon from a pomo or poststructuralist
perspective, please pass them along.