on pynchon's blurbs

[James W. Horton]

On Thu, 16 Mar 1995 OUTRSPACIA at aol.com wrote:

> I can't help but think that Mr. Pynchon snickers at us when we read his
> blurbs. I think he writes from a blurb persona. And I'll be he gets a big
> kick out of it. These blurbs make him sound like "everybody else," when we
> know, and certainly he knows, he's not. The true pynchon probably is the kind
> of writer who believes blurbs are the stuff of advertising puffery, they
> can't possibly begin to hint at what's in the writing itself. I haven't
> looked at  my copies of his stuff in writing this note, but I can't help but
> think he would have to chuckle, if not outright laugh, at what some popular
> novelist would have to say in a blurb about any of his novels. What 25 words
> or less could begin to suggest what lies in the heart of GR. Or even Slow
> Learner. I think he thinks blurbs are a joke. And he loves telling them.
> 


	I don't know whether TP thinks blurbs are a joke, but most of 
them (blurbs in general that is, not TP's necessarily) are masterpieces 
of inanity.  My favourite is on the back of the Bantam LOT 49:

THE COMEDY CRACKLES, THE PUNS POP, THE SATIRE EXPLODES
					--The New York Times


				jwh