Pynchon in Strange Places

[Coffey, Mitchell R]

I assume this nine year old connection has been posted before, but it may be
of interest.

Last night I finished reading historian Robert K. Massie's "Dreadnought:
Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War". (Random House, 1991,
ISBN 0-394-52833-6)   Massie's previous books include "Nicholas and
Alexander" and "Peter the Great".  (The former was made into a popular
movie, while the latter was the basis for a 1980s big-network mini-series.
So beyond being an accomplished historian, he lives an historian's dream;
the Brits only gave Hugh Trevor-Roper a baronacy, for Christ's sake.)

So, cut to page 913.  Here are Massie's acknowledgment.  Scroll to
second-to-last paragraph:

"Through the years this book has been in progress, many friends have helped
by word of deed.  I thank especially Lorna Massie, the late Natalie May, ...
Thomas Pynchon and Melanie Jackson ..."

Now, Massie's volume, as the title suggests, includes a techno-subtext (or
an attempt at one).  It also recounts certain Pynchonian settings and
situations, regarding "V" and "Under the Rose".  It would be interesting -
does anyone know more about this connection?


Mitchell Coffey
____________________________________________
Slim Pickins rode the bomb down laughing
Bucking to oblivion
In gravity's rainbow rodeo

 - Found anonymously felt-penned onto a wall
   in the Bancroft Library on the UC Berkeley
   campus, c. 1977