re Re: Pynchon & journalists

[Doug Millison]

I find myself wondering if you're trying to be contrary on purpose, "jbor",
for reasons that escape me -- but it's always fascinating to talk with you
and watch your mind at work, so I'm not complaining.  Hajdu and Publishers
Weekly seem quite happy using the word "interview" to describe Hajdu's
interaction with Pynchon  -- PW reports Hajdu's comment: "This is the guy
who enjoined the Morgan Library from making his letters available to
scholars until after his death!" exclaims the author, who describes their
epistolary exchanges as "one of the most exhilarating research experiences
of my life."

If you don't want to call it an interview, that's fine, but why you'd want
to split hairs that way and use some other word to describe what happens
when somebody answers questions posed by a journalist, I can't imagine --
it's a pretty useful word, "interview", after all, I guess that's why we
have it in the English language in the first place.  I know that I've
interviewed literally hundreds of people in my 20-year career as a
journalist-- some of those conversations took place in person, some by
phone, some by fax, some by email, some were set up with more of the
trappings of an officially sanctioned encounter (arrangements made by the
subject's assistant, perhaps, or through a press agency, etc.), some were
more spontaneously arranged, some were granted for background research only
and  some the conversations were entirely off the record -- but they were
all interviews.  Same thing for Pynchon's phone interview with CNN, when he
answered questions posed by the CNN producer/journalist.  But, hey, call it
whatever you want to call it -- it still doesn't add up to a
"deliberate 40 year silence on the old journalistic interview-front" the
way I see it.  Admittedly, Pynchon has not been the subject of many
interviews -- only two that I know of (assuming I'm right and Pynchon did
talk to CNN on the phone, as I recall -- but it's possible I don't have
that detal right).  But, two is not none.   (Ruth is correct, an interview
by exchange of written questions is not the same as an interview conducted
in real time in person or over the phone or in an email chat room -- a not
uncommon practice these days among journalists -- but they're all
interviews.)

Of course you've been quoting from Pynchon's CNN interview in your email
signature off and on for some time now -- another of your little jokes, I
guess, asking me to dig up a reference to an interview you're been quoting
all this time!  Boy, I just love the laughter you bring into our lives!

Or, maybe you're using some special definition of "journalistic interview"
that spells out certain parameters that must be met, certain elements that
must be present, in order to merit the "journalistic interview" monniker?
20 years as a professional journalist and I'm not aware of such a
definition, but I'd love to learn what you think constitutes a
"journalistic interview", if you feel like spelling it out, that is. I'd
say a "journalistic interview" is an interview with a journalist, a
situation where a journalist asks questions and the interview subject
answers them -- but if you've got a special definition in mind, I'm all
ears.

I suspect most people can distinguish a glossy monthly magazine that reeks
of material excess and misogyny from an independent press underground
classic book that for many years served to spread the word about MDMA and
the personal transformations that substance is said to enable  --
certainly, if you had a chance to see the two publications, you'd recognize
the difference between the presentation of  Playboy Japan's "Talk by Thomas
Pynchon" (alleged, yes the jury's still out) interview, and the single
quote from Pynchon that Eisner includes in his book.  The format certainly
is different, and the Playboy Japan article contains a whole magazine page
of comment from Pynchon, not just one little quote the way Eisner's book
does, and the one is a magazine while the other is a book. (Now, be careful
not to read into these distinctions any value judgements, which I'm not
making, both Playboy Japan and Eisner's book do a great job of serving
their respective audiences.)

But if it serves your purpose to see no difference between the two
publications, either in form or content, then I say go for it. I don't know
what it gets you, but you're certainly entitled to call it the way you see
it -- I guess you have seen the two publications?  Or are you drawing
conclusions without having actually seen them, based only on what you've
heard here on Pynchon-L?  Either way, call it the way you see fit.   You do
have a knack for finding similarities in the strangest situations -- I
guess that comes from your literary training, and I just have to admire
that, no matter how little the similarity you're forcing seems to
correspond to the two publications we're discussing here.  You always make
me think a little harder than I might have done, and I'm grateful for that
opportunity, too.  Thanks a lot.

-Doug