re Re: better version of Playboy Japan interview with TRP

[Doug Millison]

Dave,

We've discussed offlist -- and I've made it plain ever since I took the
trouble to let the P-list know about the Playboy Japan interview and
provide a translation of it, using phrases such as "comments attributed to
Pynchon" and "if it's what it purports to be" from the start -- that I keep
an open mind regarding the possbility that the Playboy Interview is not
what it claims to be, and I agree with your points below.  I see several
possibilities regarding the interview:  it may be a hoax, or a
misunderstanding, or actual comments that Pynchon now wants to disown, or
an on-the-record conversation that he had with a journalist -- it's all
interesting.  If it's a hoax, it's certainly gotten good placement, because
no matter how the story unfolds it will sooner or later make it into the
media frequented by US and European literary types; but,  it doesn't have
the artistic zing as those purported X-ray photographs of Pynchon that were
part of an elaborate hoax that surfaced in an art project a few years ago.
Another P-lister has suggested offlist that a clear indicator of the
interview's status will come if Pynchon takes legal action to suppress it.

The fact remains, and on this you and I agree despite our occasional
disagreements elsewhere, that Pynchon while he isn't as voluble as many
writers, he has a long record of speaking to the public outside of his
fiction, he has cooperated with journalists, and a substantial body of
material that he has provided provide plenty of fodder for educated
speculation about his views on politics and art.  This challenges the
romantic myth of Pynchon as a recluse -- he has himself rejected the use of
that label to describe him.

For the rest of it, I can't take too seriously the insults that a few
misguided individuals fling in this direction -- I'm sure they don't intend
to sound as mean-spirited as they do, and if they're doing it on purpose, I
feel sorry for them, it must be terrible to feel so bad that you have to
take it out on a complete stranger.  I wish them much love and all the good
things they want.

-Doug



Dave Monroe:
I knows what I sees, I guess, and then some, though I
didn't make it clear that I wasn't quite counting you
in on the initial round of haterism here.  But I've no
doubt that the reasons why these "discussions," such
as they are, persist and inflame to the extent that
they do is because of the particular people involved
here.  Whatever is posted is praised or denigrated not
by virtue of content, but by virtue of its sender, and
his/her place in list politics (which often break down
along lines of capital-p Politics) ...

But what I've been at particular pains to point out
here as well is that we are ALL largely "sticking"
here to precisely what we do NOT know, first and
foremost, the text, but, also, precisley what the text
is a translation of, whether or not Pynchon made
whatever comments were translated, however they were
translated, whether or not he had intended them for
publication (though, had he made them, this is really
beside the point, they are then his, and he is thus
responsible for them), whether or not Pynchon has had
any comment on any of this since (though I expect to
hear something on that soon), and so forth ...

He might well NOT have given any interview, made any
comments, whatever, whatsoever, but no one here is in
any position to argue that he hadn't merely on the
basis of a rough translation of what may or may not
have been said.  It's the irresponsibility of such
speculations that leads me to believe that they have
been provoked largely, as stated, by any and/or all of
the following: anxieties about Pynchon actually making
the comments attributed to him; more general anxieties
about Pynchon making public comments at all; and/or
prejudicial regard for the particular source of what
should have been taken as an interesting lead, whether
or not it ultimately pans out.  Okay, one more, then
Mason & Dixon ...