Pynchon and Rancho Santa Fe

[Paul Mackin]

Any connection between P and the happenings in San Diego? Are the cult members just an extreme case of not taking one's mortality seriously enough?
As teen drivers and young writers are said not to do? Maybe SciFi writers also? Reminded me of that bit from Slow Learner quoted yesterday in connection with early enthusiasm for SciFi in recent posts. Thing is, these cultists weren't all young. Average age was in the forties. Where in the so-called education process are you supposed to be taught the nonfeasiblity of shedding your earthly wrapper and jouneying home? Should Pynchon-reading be promoted as a suicide deterent? Probably too obscure for the folks most in need. Even the celebrated Gore Vidal apparently misstook Pynchon's work as holding out false hope of immortality or so that Plastic Fiction essay would seem to indicate. Think most would agree that P's view of death is quite the opposite.

			P.