MDMD[6]: Fatherhood & The Absent Author

[SHUBHA GHOSH]

You're right to point out a tension between bourgeois respectability and
the life of recluse nomad in Pynchon; that's suggested in SLow Learner
in his description of discovering the Wardell book (was it THe Wandering
Scholars?).  The tension is also suggested in the dedication to Vineland:
To my parents;  is Pynchon really Desmond returning home, feathers in
mouth?  Also note the Johhny Copeland at the start of Vineland:  can
Pynchon the dog have two days, i.e. obtain notoreity and success again
after GR?

Pynchon is probably like a lot of people I know who came of age in the
Sixties: low key but caring (sound familiar).  Meaning Pynchon does not
shun social encounters in the way he shuns publicity.  An acquaintance
who teaches at an east coast college actually had Pynchon's niece as a
student in his classes.  Her reports suggested that Pynchon was  a regular
guy, at home during Thanksgiving and other holidays.  In fact Pynchon
attended his niece's graduation a few years ago,  where my acquaintance
had the fortune to meet the man.

>From what I gather Pynchon has had a lot of personal problems throughout
his life, like all of us.  He just prefers to play them out in fiction
rather than in the tabloids.

On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, Sherwood, Harrison wrote:

> I've been musing on the matter of Jackson Pynchon and his effect on his
> father's life, and I think I've come up with something that might be
> worth chewing on. 
> 
> I don't think it's unfair to speculate that there must be a fairly
> onerous tension in Pynchon's life, between the Absent Author persona he
> has been carefully cultivating for these many years on one hand, and the
> parent's obligation to provide a healthy, happy and reasonably normal
> home life for young Jackson. 
> 
> It is one thing to ask a spouse to share one's exile; presumably,
> Melanie entered marriage with TRP with both eyes wide open. It is
> entirely another to ask it of an innocent child. Playing hide-and-seek
> with the world is a luxury only for the childless. It is, frankly,
> oppressive and cruel to ask your child to be absent as well. And of
> course our humane hero knows this only too well. Is Daddy Tom going to
> wear Groucho glasses and a floppy slouch hat to the PS 213 Christmas
> pageant? ("Look, honey! Take an ob-like glance to your right! It's that
> Pin-shawn guy from CNN the other nite!")
> 
> It is not projecting too much to infer that Pynchon has, since the birth
> of his son, had to carry on an internal struggle: Is it possible to be
> both a Present Father and an Absent Author? If he is forced to choose
> between them--as it would seem he must--which wins? Art or Love? And
> perhaps more interestingly, where does one end and the other begin?
> 
> In light of this, consider this passage, from page 6 of M&D--first
> appearances of Cherrycoke and LeSpark:
> 
> It has become an afternoon habit for the Twins and their Sister, and
> what Friends old and young may find their way here, to gather for
> another Tale from their far-travel'd Uncle, the Rev'd Wicks Cherrycoke,
> who [...] has linger'd as a Guest in the Home of his sister Elizabeth,
> the Wife, for many years, of Mr. J. Wade LeSpark, a respected Merchant
> active in Town Affairs, whilst in his home yet Sultan enough to convey
> to the Rev'd, tho' without ever so stipulating, that, for as long as he
> can keep the children amus'd, he may remain....
> 
> "As long as he can keep the children amus'd..." (Who mentioned
> Scheherazade the other day?)
> 
> So! Tension indeed, between the staid bourgeois (Town Affairs! OK, OK,
> we smoak it, Tom! Or should that be, "we're smoaking in it"?), the
> Father/Provider, who carries the weight of Responsibility on his
> shoulders (it's plain he's Wade down!)--and his ne'er-do-well
> brother-in-law, possible Jesuitickal Tool, Artificer Extraordinaire,
> perfecter of parsonickal Disguises, and wholly unreliable spinner of
> Yarns, the frequently <blink>Absent</blink> Wicks Cherrycoke.
> 
> But when those Stories dry up, when the kiddiewinks cease to be amus'd,
> Dads wants the Wickster gone--Boppo!
> 
> A-and out of the friction between the Father and the
> Storyteller--between the Spark and the Wick--comes the Tale of Mason &
> Dixon.
> 
> I sense The Historickal Tom peeking out between the lines here, a tiny
> Velazquez framed in the candlelit doorway in "Las Meninas."
> 
> What do you think, sirs?
> 
> Harrison
>