Pynchon's Foreword

[jbor]

on 5/6/03 5:56 AM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

> it's
> slick marketing on pynchon's part (or whoever it is that markets him)
> and I can't help but think that there is something ironic in all this.
> THEY insisted he write some conventional Foreword and he insisted on
> being a poet. 

I imagine there's a credit for cover design on the back of the book. It was
a bit silly to try and interpret the book cover in concert with Pynchon's
Foreword in the first place. Chances are, the two were composed completely
independently of one another.

There may well be irony, though it'd be good if you could explain what you
actually see as ironic. The influence of Orwell's _1984_ on Pynchon, in
writing _GR_ particularly, was openly acknowledged in the title he chose for
his short story collection in the mid '80s. When asked, I'm sure he was only
too happy to write the new Foreword to Orwell's novel, and it's apparent
that he even did a little bit of research (though, as per the reference list
on p. xxvi, he does seem to have consulted only the first and fourth volumes
of Orwell's essays and letters, and one biography, and he misses the mark on
a couple of things, eg. the change in Orwell's attitude to the war itself,
as a result). I'm not sure what's being marketed beyond the new edition of
Orwell's novel, and I'm not sure that Pynchon's Foreword is particularly
unconventional, except for a couple of typically Pynchonian asides written
in a typically less than formal register, which are stylistically of a piece
with same in other essays he has written.

The difference between this Foreword and the 'Intro' to _SL_ is that the
latter is autobiographical and this one is biographical.

best