The anti-Mailer

[Jan KLIMKOWSKI]

 Nicholas Lester wrote:
>1. Why do we spend so much time speculating about TP's private life when he
>has tried hard to get us to IGNORE him and concentrate on his books? So
>where's the logic here? He asks us to judge his work as it stands, yet we
>insist on doing the opposite. I like TP's work because I don't know 
anything
>about him. Let's keep it that way. Otherwise TP will become another
>Mailer--full of himself, full of appearances on Jay Leno, and void of 
talent.

I've always conceived of Pynchon as the anti-Mailer, deliberately reacting 
against Norm's desire to fight his battles as much thru the media as thru 
his art.  Becoming a chat show/colour supplement regular in the 70s could 
only have diminished Pynchon's art.  After GR, there is nothing to say.

But now I'm gonna run into trouble with most of the list.  Because my 
Pynchon is a politically radical Pynchon, albeit a radical who's a tad more 
sophisticated than most.  I think it matters that the reprise of the 
Counterforce song (note Counterforce, not Counterculture) is:

"And it isn't a resistance, it's a war..."

Ladies and gentlemen, choose your medium please!

jan