Wanda Unveiled

[jbor]

O what a tangled web we weave ...

I had marvelled at Steven Moore's involvement in the publication of those
letters too. However, I must admit that on first reading jack green's fire
the bastards! my gut reaction was that it was Gaddis purging spleen and
vindicating himself (something about the timing, context and the invective
tone therein). Never so with the Tinasky blather and Pynchon, however.

There is a parenthetical remark on this site to the effect that Pynchon made
a statement of denial to CNN about the letters, which I haven't heard
corroborated elsewhere but which, if so, should have put the hoax to bed
long ago:

http://www.altculture.com/aentries/p/pynchon.html

On a cursory reading the Tinasky letters seemed to me to have emanated from
some self-proclaimed "genius" so bitter and twisted about its own lack of
acclaim that it had taken the opportunity to run down everybody and anybody
it could in a frenzy of churlishness, much of it directed against
contemporary poets and poetry. While Hawkins certainly does fit that m.o.,
Pynchon obviously doesn't, and to accuse him of such feeble imposture seemed
to me to be a kind of defamation in itself. In fact, it almost appears that
those who wished (and still wish, apparently) to "unveil" TRP as Wanda bear
some sort of resentment or jealousy towards him and his reputation, and
which is all tied up with their motives for so doing.

best

----------
>From: Alan Westrope <awestrop at komarios.net>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Wanda Unveiled
>Date: Mon, Nov 27, 2000, 6:10 AM

snip
>
> For me, the strangest thing about this story was thinking about Steve
> Moore, who had quite an interesting relationship with jack green himself,
> perusing these letters while writing the Foreword, unaware that the "Wanda"
> had corresponded with green and written a book called _Eve, The Common
> Muse of Henry Miller & Lawrence Durrell_, which asserted that green
> and William Gaddis were the same person.  Ah, irony...now where the hell
> is William Gass when we need him?!!?
>