Lineland

[Paul Murphy]

Hello.
Back to the list (after another bunch of hiatus months while I churned out
the dissertation) in time for M&D ... and Siegel's revenant act. I'm
apparently in the book, though I don't remember what I said then and don't
care to read it now (though I'll take a copy all the same, for bathroom
reading material). My first reaction upon receiving Larson's message, then
checking the website, was amusement about having been (unwittingly)
entangled in Siegel's machinations. I'm not particularly bothered by the
legal aspects, as I don't feel all that proprietorial towards casual posts
to mailing-lists, but I appreciate the debate about legality on an
intellectual level. Not informing the individual contributors prior to
publication does strike me as extremely impolite, but Siegel is clearly not
interested in politesse.
My second reaction was one of disappointment, borne of a certain personal
vanity. Of all the possible books to be made of Pynchon-l submissions, this
is probably the most meretricious and least insightful one I could imagine,
and I have no doubt that each contributor has written far more interesting
and significant posts about Pynchon's work than anything to be found in the
Siegel exploitation. At least, I know I've written more interesting posts
(or I like to think I have ...). The Siegel episode amounted to shooting
the shit about that guy Tom Pynchon that Siegel once knew (and won't let
anyone forget about it), but clearly the biographical dimension isn't the
main reason why any of us are here.
If material from this list were to be published, I'd rather see something
more substantive like a collected and expanded GRGR (or even the complete
correspondence of Steely and davemarc on Spielberg ;)).
So it goes,
Paul

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      "And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head
          toward his face, he is forehead bald; yet is he clean."
                              -Leviticus 13:41