No technophobe

[Greg Montalbano]

On Mon, 22 Jan 1996 11:44:00 -0500 (EST) you said:
>
>Thanks to Jeffrey for the excerpt from the Luddite article.
>
>Here I go again, but Pynchon's nonfiction writing has a disorienting
>effect on me. No, he's definitely not a technophobe. He's unnervingly
>mainstream up to an including a cautious belief (hope) in impowerment
>of the people through the computer. I, of course, have that hope too. But
>I would just as soon _he_ did not display _his_ normality so baldly (even
>allowing the possibility it maybe an act for the NY Times editor). It takes
>away a little from the strangeness and ambiguity found in the novels. I
>would prefer my visionaries not quite so sane.
>
>What a rash sounding paragraph I've just typed! Going off
>half-cocked again on the basis of a bit from a newspaper article.
>Please forgive the hyperbole.
>
>I do think I see why Tom has tried to keep his nonfictional
>existence out of the public eye.
>
>					P.
>
I think Paul's note, along with several of the recent postings on meeting TRP
and the TRP autobiography, bring up a couple of points we (the fans) should
consider:
1) It's almost universally unsettling to meet a writer, actor, sports figure,
et cet, --- anyone whom the fan assumes a personal knowledge of, based upon
the work of that person;  this is particularly true in the case of writers
(I think of Harlan Ellison's chagrin at meeting Asimov for the first time, and
finding, not the mightily-thewed Lije Baily with the brain of Univac, but a
"grinning, wise-cracking Shylockian jew";  also of Ursula LeGuin's remarks
about meeting favorite writers and finding cranky, obsessed little people
with bizarre footwear, who only seem to want to discuss the unfairness of the
tax system with regard to persons with fluctuating incomes).
2)  Writers, as we all know (but need to keep reminding ourselves), usually
do not lead the lives of their characters.  A large portion of the writer's art
is to produce dazzlingly complex structures from the smallest seed crystals.
Think of the Bronte sisters living the quiet lives considered appropriate to
people of their class & gender at that time, yet coming up with novels about
characters & situations outside their personal experience.
Also, think of John Barth's comments (in "The Friday Book") about writing
THE SOT-WEED FACTOR --- he denies being an authority on colonial Maryland,
but attributes the historical richness & versimilitude of the novel to
good, old-fashioned RESEARCH.  (The same research that TRP refers to in the
intro to SLOW LEARNER.)
I confess to being fascinated by writers writing about writing (LeGuin's
LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT, Barth's THE FRIDAY BOOK, Gene Wolfe's CASTLE OF DAYS,
or any of the essays of Dan Simmons, Harlan Ellison, or TRP's intro to SL).
But that's writing about the writing;  biography seldom enters the picture.

Finally, could any ONE true picture stand up to the myriad fantasies we all
carry about the life & history of TRP without ultimately disappointing us
all?