"use" of sources

[Vaska]

I really don't know what my own stand on this is, or if I will ever come to
some final position on the issue, but there is that little question of what
liberties an artist takes and is allowed to take with his/her human
"sources."  [I swiped the subject line from a guy who writes about
literature as most of us would give an arm-and-a-half for, and who, although
a good 30 years older than I, still has the grace to wonder about these
things.]  I also know that Jules can really piss people off in a big way,
the greater their investment in mythifying P., the more, so I'll keep this
as short as I can.  

What Jules is talking about with respect to Pynchon's portrayal of [still
living] human beings, is a legitimate *literary* topic.  Now, it may be
unsuitable for discussion on this list, and probably is, especially at this
time. But Pynchon is not the first writer whose novels, as fiction, have
come under some scrutiny regarding this aspect of his/her work.  The better
new editions of Lawrence's _Sons and Lovers_ do carry the most pertinent
articles on Lawrence's use of his human "sources" in that novel: and for a
good reason.  

For those who'd like to know more about this, or why it might even deserve
some thought in the first place, there is Louise Desalvo's _Conceived With
Malice_ [1995], where she very sensitively, and without dismissing the work
of any of the writers she tackles, looks at the novels of Virginia Wolf, her
husband Leonard, D.H. Lawrence, Djuna Barnes and Henry Miller to think
through some of the real complexities of what has to be considered when we
talk about the ethics of art.  Or even about the humbler version of that
very broad subject: the ethical core of a particular writer's work.   

Vaska