better version of Playboy Japan interview with TRP

[jbor]

Book blurbs for (mainly) personal friends, two-three letters to the editor,
a telephone call made to CNN, non-fiction articles, a book review or two,
and an exchange by fax of questions and answers for a biography are very
different - in purpose, content, and context - from an actual current
affairs media interview instigated by a journalist. If the interview is
authentic, and I'm still very dubious about that, then it's a first. But I'd
imagine it would be pretty simple to verify whether or not he made the
comments (and authorised their publication in Japanese _Playboy_), and I
must admit it does surprise me that no-one has bothered to check the source,
or assess the significance of the medium, what with so much consternation
over the validity of the "non-alternative" media here in recent months.

But, as I said, it's just a general impression of the "argument" I get from
the various digs coming from Doug and some of his cronies in recent days.
Doug's comment: "What I continue to find fascinating is how people who hold
political views that appear to differ so with those that undergird Pynchon's
work still manage to to enjoy his fiction." Followed up by Barbara's
harangue: "you might ask yourselves what it is you're doing here with such
little respect" for Pynchon, and Dave Monroe's snide assertion that "some
here are hearing something they didn't want to hear".

The attitude seems to be that unless you concur with *Doug's* ridiculous
politics then you have no right to be reading Pynchon's works.

best



on 9/1/02 11:06 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> Not the argument I made, or intended, of course, not even close.
> 
> Do you really feel that somebody is trying to keep you from reading Pynchon?
> Reality check:  How could "they" manage to stop you?
> 
> When did Pynchon's "deliberate forty year silence" take place?  Before or
> after he called CNN in 1997? (Oops, what about those essays, book
> introductions, support quotes, letters to the editor, etc.)  Or would the
> pivotal date be when David Hadju interviewed him for the Farina book?
> 
> Anyway, Happy New Year to you, too, "jbor" -- all the best.  I hope you get
> everything you want in 2002, all the good stuff.
> 
> -Doug
> 
> 
> 
> "jbor"
> I think the argument goes something like this, Otto: Now that Pynchon has
> finally broken a deliberate forty year silence by speaking out - so
> comprehensively and thoughtfully - in this, his first official press
> interview, strategically vouchsafed to a journalist from that forefront
> progressive, left-leaning, anti-corporate, anti-global capital, humanitarian
> organisation, Hef's Playboycorp empire, anyone who ISN'T a card-carrying
> George Bush Jnr-hater and anti-US propagandist should NOT, under ANY
> circumstances, be permitted to discuss or even to read Pynchon's work.
> 
> 
> 
> Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
> millison at online-journalist.com
> www.Online-Journalist.com