is Pynchon a recluse?

[MalignD at aol.com]

Millison:

<<I'm beginning to agree with former (?) P-lister John Mascaro who argued that
Pynchon is putting us on in the Slow Learner intro. Considering that Pynchon
seems to have understood very early on (in the early 60s, according to
excerpts from the letters he wrote to his agent, Candida Donadio, reported
in the NY Times at the time the letters were donated to the Morgan Library,
and before Pynchon closed off access to them) that his work would put him in
the company of the giants of American literature, it's difficult to draw any
firm conclusions from his ironic, nuanced -- and funny -- put-down of his
early stories.  Critical reception to the stories was favorable and by the
time Pynchon wrote the intro to the Slow Learner collection he knew that
even his early work was held in high esteem by the literary establishment,
so what he writes here has to be read, it seems to me, in light of our
knowledge of his knowledge of the respected place this work has in the
Western literary canon. Again, the authorial irony is deep and layered and
nuanced.>>

Or, as an author whose novels' quality made inevitable the re-publication of 
everything he'd ever written, he might have sought to preempt the criticism 
that these callow and not-so-hot stories were likely to attract.

Put another way, if P--envisioning himself in the company of giants as 
Millison would have it--were pleased to have GR compared to Ulysses, he might 
likely have been a lot less happy to have Slow Learner out there, inviting 
comparison to Dubliners.