more slow learner intro

[Paul Mackin]

Orlowsky at aol.com wrote:

>
> Here's a snippet from a March 11, 1984 article in the Washington Post:
>
> The reason Pynchon is allowing these early stories to be published, after years of holding them back, was explained similarly by both Melanie Jackson and
> Corlies Smith, the author's editor at Viking, who has himself recently moved to Ticknor & Fields. Says Jackson, "He was irritated by the unauthorized distribution of these stories (in pamphlet form). They've been featured prominently in some New York bookstores and he wasn't receiving any royalties from them."

Seems a completely reasonable explanation and what a business agent would likely as not advise a client to do but it doesn't answer apparently outstanding questions in the minds of p-listers  with regard to "reliability,"  "seriousness,"  etc., in what is usually called the Introduction to _Slow Learner_   but
(as I happened to surmise perusing my copy yesterday) might more correctly be referred to as  "Introduction" IN  _Slow Learner_. What I mean is that, although "Introduction" is placed first in the book,  it receives exactly  the same status with regard to pagination and typography as "The Small Rain,"
"Low-lands," and the rest.  It seems "Introduction" is rather explicitly not the usual sort of preface (set off in Roman numerals) an author might write for such a collection. I thought it might be interesting to throw this out for discussion, assuming it hasn't already been dealt with previously.

There is of course one problem (among others no doubt)  in cutting completely to the chase and saying "Introduction" is another piece of short fiction contained in _Slow Learner_. It is an indisputable fact that  the cover of the LB paperbound  edition says in plane letters "Slow Learner, EARLY Stories by Thomas
Pynchon (emphasis supplied)."  On the other hand, what is necessarily EARLY and what might be LATE? Plus correct me if I've wrong but is there anything in "Introduction" to rule out its having been written considerably earlier than 1984? Such as mention of GR or the like? There is the remark that 80s kids are
smarter than those portrayed in "The Secret Integration" but this could simply be a minor bit of prescience. Later generation kids are always smarter than  earlier examples. There is also reference to the information revolution but this phenonmonon was pretty well foreseen by the early 70s. Perhaps, then, some
time in the early 80s "Introduction" was discovered as  a lost manuscript dating to even before GR (a Bellamyesque sort of "Looking Backward" thing perhaps) and tossed into the brew as an early story. The best early story in the book I might add.  Even though there are apparently no LATE ones.  A possible
scenario????

Anyway . . . .

                P.