Why Pynchon Moved East

[John Sutherland (S&T Onsite)]

Yeah, there was a big to-do about Dillard insulting our local honor in
The Seattle Times a couple of months back.  (Slow news town, what can I
say?)  Turns out she was, uh, kidding.  We're gonna tie her down and
make her wear a plaid flannel nursing gown anyway, if she ever shows up
again.

John, goin' out in the rain to chop wood

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Steven Maas (CUTR) [SMTP:maas at cutr.eng.usf.edu]
> Sent:	Tuesday, February 11, 1997 8:50 AM
> To:	Pynchon-l
> Subject:	Re: Why Pynchon Moved East
> 
> This is hilarious. (I have to confess to a schadenfreude--I always
> look
> forward to reading Steelhead posts--I'm just glad I haven't been a
> target. 
> [Steelhead--my .edu address signifies only that I am a researcher--and
> at
> a very plebeian university at that!]). Ms. Dillard sounds like a real
> scheisskopf here. 
> 
> On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, Steelhead wrote:
> 
> > For several years Annie Dillard lived and taught college at Western
> > Washington University in Bellingham, on Puget Sound north of
> Seattle. A few
> > months ago, Dillard was speaking at a gathering for intellectuals
> and
> > literary crit types in the Midwest. She answered a question on why
> she
> > moved back East in this manner:
> > 
> > "The Northwest is no place for an intellectual woman. The men there
> were
> > just wonderful, but the women out there had a kind of culture I
> couldn't
> > share. They used chainsaws, they canned things, and they breast-fed.
> > 
> > "Out there I was suddenly a bluestocking. And all of these men were
> > following me around everywhere I went. And the husbands and
> everybody, just
> > this huge train of men behind me, and every once in a while I'd turn
> around
> > and say: 'You guys...I'm an eastern woman; we're all this way.' But
> their
> > women were so dull, you know, that the men would give up anything
> just to
> > hear me for five minutes."
> > 
> > There it is. Tom Pynchon was an Annie Dillard groupie. Followed her
> back
> > East, where all the women are INTELLECTUALS.
> > 
> > Steely
> > 
> > 
>