Today's Pynchon name-drop in Salon

[Paul Mackin]

Reminds me that Pynchon's name came up in a review (Times I think) of the
new William Gibson book--something to the effect that it contained the
"corridor metaphysics of Thomas Pynchon." I asked a friend I knew to have
read the book what was being referred to and he replied as follows:

The 'corridor metaphysics' is the musing of the assassin, who's a student
of the Tao. The man is a genius with a knife, and given to musing quite a
bit. Recall Molly, from his earlier works, the razor girl, with her imbedded
electronics, and over-clocked reflexes. She was a very down to earth gal:
kill 'em, collect her pay, and move on down the line.

			P.




On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Richard Romeo wrote:

> forgot this one, Derek,  arather lame article about first novels. I hate 
> this kind of shit--
> 
> "Not necessarily: Even when the world responds in a good way, the noise can 
> threaten to creep into a writer's head and silence her talent. This is 
> famously the case with writers like Thomas Pynchon and J.D. Salinger -- the 
> latter told Joyce Maynard that he left New York because he couldn't stand 
> going to one more cocktail party and having
> someone come up and tell him about his characters."
> 
> http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/11/30/beware/index.html
> 
> >From: "Derek C. Maus" <dmaus at email.unc.edu>
> >To: Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >Subject: Today's Pynchon name-drop in Salon
> >Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 12:27:58 -0500 (EST)
> >
> >
> >Didn't somebody a few weeks back question the cultural capital to be
> >gained by name-dropping Pynchon? Well, if Salon is any indication, then
> >it's pretty damn valuable stuff, because they seem to do it about once a
> >day...and occasionally even in a literary (if often somewhat questionable)
> >context. 134 references turned up in a quick search of the site (although
> >most of them seem to be doubles...that still leaves 67 references).
> >
> >Today's PRPR (Public Relations Pynchon Reference) is at
> >http://www.salon.com/media/col/shal/1999/11/30/naming/index1.html:
> >
> >"Welcome to big-league corporate naming, a Pynchonesque netherworld of
> >dueling morphemes, identity buckets and full-scale linguistic sabotage."
> >
> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Derek C. Maus               | "What am I opposed to tell my customers?"
> >dmaus at email.unc.edu         | Swearingen said. "'Sorry, Washington says
> >UNC-CH, Dept. of English    | no more fanny packs for you; time to spend
> >http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  | your money on great works of literature'?
> >                             | It doesn't work that way."   --THE ONION
> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> 
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