Autobiography & a couple of puzzles

[Tom Maddox]

Pynchon's reluctance to appear in the spotlight has been a feature (not a
bug) of his existence as writer and human being for so long, I confess to a
mild surprise at people's wondering whether he might write an
autobiography.  I mean, I would guess he will sign the contract for that
book about the same time as J. D. Salinger does.

But, on second thought:  why not?  This doesn't mean that he would answer
any of the questions that people think they want answers to (e.g., what is
Thos. Pynchon really like?).  In fact, a T. P. autobiography, if it
existed, would almost certainly be a weird and sideways refusal to answer
such questions.

Anyway, since I first read it, _Gravity's Rainbow_ for me has contained
telling biographical insights.  I had and have no proof that this is so,
aside from  resemblances (and we all know how treacherous those can be)
such as those holding for the Slothrop/Pynchon family histories, &c.

But I remember reading for the first time the passages where Tyrone
Slothrop disappears:

Scattered all over the Zone.  It's doubtful if he can ever be "found"
again, in the                         conventional sense of "positively
identified and detained."   (712)

That passage together in my mind with Slothrop's transcendence (if you
will, of a sort) of his innaresting condition through his channeling of the
spirits of bluesmen--I thought, well, that's it, no more books from Thos.
Pynchon any time soon; and I went around saying this to people for years
until doing so became redundant or otiose, take your pick, because there
obviously *weren't* any books from Thos. Pynchon for quite some time.

Until _Vineland_, which turns out to be a rediscovery of family history in
a much more positive light, its characters lining up to testify to the
process by which, generation to generation, they came to be.  More moments
of Pynchonian autobiographical illumination, I think, in which the man
comes to terms to some extent with the idea that one's family history is
not simply a matter of money, shit and the Word, I I believe the phrase is,
but can form narratives of resistance to those forces and persistence in
spite of them . . .

Or something like that.

Which reminds me:  as the Pynchon Industry (you don't have to hold up your
hands; we know who you are) has exfoliated over the past thirty years, I've
not seen good commentary or annotation to two semiotic events, one from
_V._ the other from _GR_.

>From _V._  the punchline to Fu's joke:  "Was that not a curious minstrel?"
(I'm doing this from memory because my copy of the book is elsewhere; hope
that's right.)  Anyway, is that a pun?  It *feels* like one.  If not, what
is it?  Just a little narrative itch I've never been able to scratch.

>From _GR_, the Kirghiz Light.  That one feels like it should refer or
allude to something outside the book, some event, civilization, city,
*something*.  Anyone got an idea or explanation?

Yours,

Tom