re Re: Pynchon & journalists

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Jbor:
3. The Japan _Playboy_ piece, if legitimate, will be Pynchon's first
official press interview, breaking a forty-year silence.

No, argue all you want about the word INTERVIEW, but Thomas Pynchon has not
been SILENT for FORTY YEARS!



----- Original Message -----
From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 1:21 AM
Subject: Re: re Re: Pynchon & journalists


> on 12/1/02 4:24 PM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:
>
> > Inerview sources, subjects -- it's the same thing really
>
> For someone who has been so lexically-fastidious up to this point this is
> quite an astonishing cop-out.
>
> The _PW_ quote:
>
> > Hajdu conducted hundreds of interviews for each of his books, but
> > his favorite source is someone he's never met. The reclusive Thomas
> > Pynchon, who was a close friend of Fariña's, replied (by fax) to an
> > extensive list of questions and permitted Hajdu to quote from his
> > correspondence.
>
> An interview comprises an interviewer and an interviewee, or subject.
> Research or investigation generally entails a "source" and, despite your
> attempts at obfuscation, the excerpt above, which you cited, clearly
denotes
> Pynchon's input as "his correspondence".
>
> It was never the real issue, of course, but thanks for the last word on
> that. (By the way, as I happen to edit a quarterly journal I lied a little
> about being a total media novice. Unlike you, I prefer to give my
> interviewees the option of a taped face-to-face interview or an exchange
by
> email, and I provide them with an opportunity to proofread and suggest
> alterations to the interview transcript before it goes to press. I can
> assure you that the results from each interview mode are vastly
different.)
>
> > so we agree!
>
> Well, it does appear that what we've manage to establish are the following
> key points:
>
> 1. Pynchon contacted CNN in early-1997, and in the course of the
> conversation which he initiated with the people there he firmly denied
that
> he was the author of the Wanda Tinasky letters and hoax.
>
> 2. David Hajdu enjoyed his correspondence by fax with Pynchon, and used
some
> of the information he received as source material for his book.
>
> 3. The Japan _Playboy_ piece, if legitimate, will be Pynchon's first
> official press interview, breaking a forty-year silence.
>
> 4. Comments attributed to Pynchon in both the _Playboy_ article and Bruce
> Eisner's MDMA book have yet to be verified.
>
> That's pretty much where we began 30 or so posts ago, give or take, but
from
> my point of view the ordeal has been worth it just to get these details
> straight, and I'm very glad to hear that you've got something out of the
> exchange yourself. (My apologies to anyone else still reading though.)
>
> best
>
>