PYNCHON IN PULSE

[Orlowsky at aol.com]

Hmmmm.  Have we really come to the point where all negative comments about
our boy have to be ridiculed?  Surely, no one on the P-list views the Lotion
interview as a major statement by Pynchon on ANYTHING.  (Although it wouldn't
surprise me in the slightest if some callow undergrad were now beginning his
or her thesis, "A View Of A Bridge: Pynchon and the Architecture of Rock and
Roll.")

Actually, the Lotion interview isn't half bad as an interview.  Pynchon stays
out of the way and lets the band talk.  The only problem is that no one cares
what Lotion has to say; the only reason to read the interview is to find out
what Pynchon has to say, which is close to nothing.  But so what?  Do you
begrudge the man a little fun?  He's not a religious icon, bestowing words of
wisdom on his disciples.  He's entitled to play a little air ukulele from
time to time, and if his fame entitles him to get paid for it, too, then so
be it.

Bowman's right, in a way.  Pynchon's output of the last twenty years has been
decidedly fluffy, and were it his entire output, I'm quite certain that this
list would not exist.  Maybe his peculiar little essays and diversions since
GR (yes, including Vineland) are just a way of blowing off steam while he
toils away at his next "serious" novel.  Or maybe they are a sign of serious
creative decay.  I find them all entertaining, and at the very least, worth
reading.  But I'm not going to defend them as great literature, and when
Bowman points out that the emperor's new clothes are a little shabby, I think
the members of this list could do more than just decry him as a talentless
shill with a pole stuck up his ass.

Bob

P.S.  Has anyone taken this list's in-depth discussion of Pynchon's blurbs,
from a year or so ago, and turned it into an article?