Personals

[Greg Montalbano]

On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 08:53:14 -0700 you said:
>Hi Greg,
>
>You wrote:
>
>> [I] also lived next door to Pynchon's ex-old lady during the
>> mid-seventies; but that's another story.
>
>Tell it!  Tell it!
>
>Mad for gossip,
>Penny
Sorry; I can never resist a good tease (I know it's wrong, but I'm weak).

The actual story is a bit of a letdown.

>From 1973 to 1975, wife & I lived in a little crackerbox near the corner of
Claremont & Colby in Oakland, CA.  One day, during a conversation about
literature in general & TRP in particular, my neighbor, one Mary Ann Tharaldsen
showed me a paper written by her roommate on TRP's works.  I spotted an error
in one of the opening paragraphs: "Slothrop, in his search for V., ....".
When I pointed this out, she laughed & said she should have caught it herself,
HAVING LIVED WITH P FOR SEVERAL YEARS.  {John Kraft, a listee, confirmed that
Ms Tharaldsen was listed in the Cornell directory as P's "wife."}
I managed a few cautious question;  nothing like the full-scale interrogation
I would lauch today.  I can offer no excuse, except that at the time it seemed
right & proper that TRP should be an unknown, unknowable recluse. (also, drugs
WERE in evidenc.)
She did say that he was "a rather strange man"; told of a little stuffed toy
pig he carried with him & sometimes whispered to ("At the movies, he would
sometimes take the pig out & tell it what he thought of the film.")
I will comment that she was laughing as she said this;  whether this was in
response to a fine performance by P, or evidence of his weirdness beyond all
expectation, I cannot say (or even if there's ultimately any difference
between the two).
I DID press her for a physical description.  She said, "Actually, he looks a
lot like you."  We eventually decided she would paint a portrait of P with
me sitting as model -- the painting was (of course) never completed, but in
it's incomplete form showed a man of more than medium height, with a long
face, long sharp Protestant nose, dangling moustache, longish hair parted
in the middle, and rather remarkable dark eyes.  I can vouch for the
accuracy of none of this.

Ms Tharaldsen moved away;  contact was lost.  After joining this list, I
found a listing for her in the Oakland phone book & left messages requesting
an interview.  I've had no response;  I see that in the CURRENT Oakland book,
she is no longer listed.

I wish I could have come up with something jucier for you folks;  but as some
of you have commented in the past, the reality of TRP could never measure up
to our collective fantasy image of him -- except, of course, in his work.

(I should add that Ms Tharaldsen in no way bore any resemblance to Rachel
Owlglass, Oedipa Maas, or Jessica Swanlake.)