what is wrong with you

[Michael Nicholson]

jules,

i have read your aticle in playboy.  it is actually touching, especially
the end.  i believe you are quite possibly a very intelligent man.  i
think you may excel at expository writing, yet lack any true creative
gift. this is fine. this is o.k.  even if pynchon did steal your girl,
no need to carry a grudge;  she would have eventually left anyway.  if
not him then someone else.  she was clearly looking for an out (no
offense).  hell, you seem to be doing just fine without her (although i
am not quite sure why you feel driven to request books, especially when
your online resume implies that you are financially capable of obtaining
them on your own).  

so now you have this new book out which lifts from the pynchon mailing
list, and everybody is up in arms.  i'm not sure i understand what the
ruckus is all about.  you could have been more polite, sure, but you did
nothing illegal. yet can you honestly tell me that you can read the back
cover without even the slightest tinge of nausea?  i mean christ,
doesn't it read like some tawdry nickel-and-dime radio drama??  frankly,
if i were you i'd be embarassed....but then i'm confident that you had
nothing to do with it.  i'm sure you were more worried with content than
with packaging.

which brings us to the point....

why aren't you creating innovative fiction?  why aren't you writing
essays or breaking earth shattering news from around the globe??  why
the fuck are you dragging to the surface an obscure footnote from
another man's past,  a subject you'd covered adequately twenty years
ago??  i fear it is because you have nothing else to say.  which is
fine.... many people have less to say in not as many years. 

so what is wrong with you.  why do you act like a total jack-ass?  the
juvenile put-downs, the pseudo-literate responses....  your behaivior
has made me reconsider the one piece of yours i had read.  and while i
am still moved by it, it is tainted.  like pychon cranking out GR2, or
steinbeck writing a grisham.  you were never that great, don't
misunderstand me.  but you had a niche, which is a lot more than most.

i'm tempted to resort to father-speak: "i'm so diappointed, etc." 
instead, i'll simply tell the truth: i wish you'd just go away.  I find
you annoying, and more than a little disturbing.


sincerely yours,

sp