Wanda Unveiled

[Dave Monroe]

Have come across a couple of reviews of that Donald Foster book (Author
Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous {New York: Henry Holt, 2000]) in the
past week or so.  Unfortunately, doesn't look like our public library
system's ordered a copy yet, and I haven't had time to hunt it down (and
is the rest of it worth shelling out for?  let me know ...), but I
thought this might be of interest, from the "official" Letters of Wanda
Tinasky website:

http://members.aol.com/tinasky/controversy.html

Having not much read those letters myself, and, certainly, not with the
care many have devoted to them, I've no strong, much less set, opinion
on whether or not Pynchon wrote 'em, but I would note that, in regard to
Foster's attribution, those "In days of old when night were bold ..."
limericks are a subgenre perhaps second only to ones that begin to
"There was a young man from Nantucket" or somesuch, i.e., not all that
unusual (pace Tom Jones) ...

Another article that I imagine you've all seen, but, just in case ...

http://www.linguafranca.com/9509/pynchon.html

Someone was kind enough, however, to forward me a copy of Charles
Hollander's "Where's Wanda? The Case of the Bag Lady and Thomas Pynchon"
(Critique, Vol. 23, No. 2 [Winter 1997]), which, apparently, if you have
an account with the site in question (Northern Lights, and I don't), is
available for a buck @

http://library.northernlight.com/LW19971231010000065.html

... actually, this looks as if it might be a pretty useful resource.
Backing up a bit yields the Internet Public Library @
http://www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit/ ...

Anyway, and, again, I imagine many of you are hip to this tip, but
Hollander does some pretty close reading of his own, and along lines
that Foster might not have pursued, adds a little legwork on who was
where and when, and makes a preety convincing case for Pynchon's
authorship, with some interesting ideas on just what the implications of
said attribution might be for reading the rest of the Pynchonian
oeuvre.  But, hey, I'm still trying to do a little close rereading of V.
myself, so ...