Hey 19

[Steelhead]

Richard Romeo writes:
>Steely, oh poor exhausted Steely,  I would hope M & D will continue his
>maturity as a writer.  Would you have criticized Under The Volcano
>because it was another damn book about Mexico and some British Consul ala
>Graham Greene? Surely every story can be told many ways..

If M&D continues the trend of maturation established in Vineland, then I
think we're talking the literary equivilent of Alzheimer's Disease for
Tommy Boy. Hopefully, though, most of M&D was written back in the late
1970s, when it was promised to us by Viking, and when TRP was still at the
top of his game. I don't think "caffiene abuse"--no matter how severe--is
the etiology of Pynchon's writing problems in the 80s and 90s.

The press release makes M&D sound like something out of Tom Robbins, not
Pynchon's Finnegan's Wake or--even better--The Confidence Man. (Nobody
reads Pierre these days, but that would have been one to shoot for two. In
fact, there are some mornings when I think Pierre is the best American
novel.)

I'm not exhausted, though perhaps I should be. I just wrote a cover story
for In These Times, have a piece ready to come out in Harpers, a long story
ready for publication by the Washington Post, and three book contracts (one
on the CIA and Drug Trafficking, one on international mining cartels, and
one on Al Gore). Moreover, I write two to three columns and stories a
week--every week. Writers write, right? And say, why aren't you NYers
talking up my latest article in last week's issue of the Village Voice?
Huh...It was at least as interesting as that Rosenbaum piece or the drivel
in New York Mag sent you all into orgasmic fits.

Steely

The ridged lip set upstream, you flail
Inland again, your exile in the sea
Unconditionally cancelled by the pull
of your home water's gravity.

Seamus Heaney
from The Salmon Fisher to the Salmon