SLSL "A Small Rain" Fuckin' Amazing

[Mutualcode at aol.com]

Can't help but recognize how amazing this first published work
written by a college student is, especially when I think back to
all the trite, pretentious "college art" we all had to endure while
passing through that period of our lives. If this, or anything like
this, had made the rounds of Pynchon's profs at the time, they
must have realized that here was a nascent writer that was not
quite ordinary, extremely rare, in fact. 

I can almost feel their trepidation- comfortable, perhaps, in
their tenured positons, at last, at a first rate institution-
almost like their worst nightmare, being confronted with
the real McCoy. It's very difficult to look genius in the eye-
especially when you're expected to grade it- and resist
disparaging it, out of jealousy, or intimidation.

And if this story is any indication, they could tell. If things
worked out for this guy, it must have been clear to some
of them, at least, that they might be using his material in
future years to teach their students, not to mention, being
mentioned, or questioned, by future critics, just for having
been his professor.

When I let myself think about all this, it seems clear to me
that Pynchon must have spent a good deal of his life feeling
different, and that, early on, in order to keep from going
crazy, he must have learned to "quietly and unobtrusively"
go native, no matter where he found himself. Thank god, for
his sake (and ours!), he was able to actually find something 
likable, or at least enrapturing, about most people and places 
he encountered.

respectfully