Personal Scatologies

[Daniel O'Hara]

If, as Andrew Dinn implies, the Warwick conference could be taken to be a 
fair index of the success of the academic Pynchon industry, then it might 
be fitting to note that said conference was more of a "no budget" affair 
than a "low-budget" one. That said, a good proportion of the 
contributors were not part of any academic institution, and many of 
those who were did not come from English Lit. departments (one such 
notable being Mr. Dinn himself.) Indeed, the conference itself was in 
fact held in the Philosophy department; perhaps it isn`t such an accurate 
index after all.
Thanks are due then to Andrew Dinn for hammering home what should be 
glaringly obvious to the sweaty-browed: there`s no capital, economic or 
otherwise, waiting to be snapped up by academics who read Pynchon. Their 
motives are the same as everyone else`s. If there`s a real need for a 
whipping-boy in the University sector, perhaps we should wait for the 
first Pynchon biographer...