Knipfel re Pynchon's Foreword to _1984_

[pynchonoid]

Thanks for pointing this out, Rich.  
I wonder if Knipfel has special insight into how/why
Pynchon got the _1984_ Foreword assignment -- isn't he
represented by Melanie Jackson?


For the Love of Big Brother
Orwell turns 100.

" [...] Another way to catch people’s attention, the
editors figured, is to commission a new foreword by
someone who might have some special, unique insight
into what Orwell envisioned. For the centennial
edition of Animal Farm, for instance (which received a
similar repackaging), they hired Ann Patchett, author
of Bel Canto and The Magician’s Assistant. But who
would be right for 1984?

Someone, maybe, who might feel a special bond with
Winston Smith. Or O’Brien or Goldstein or Big Brother
himself. Even Tillotson (you never hear enough about
him). If it turns out to be an author who writes like
no one ever has before—or ever will—then you’ve got a
double bonus. People will pick up the dusty old novel
not for the dusty old novel, but for the secret prize
hidden inside, like the toy balloon gondolas and
plastic cavemen that used to lie buried at the bottom
of boxes of Fruity Pebbles. I never liked Fruity
Pebbles much, but those gondolas were the best.

Plume couldn’t have done better than to snag Thomas
Pynchon. While we all, in some way, have a stake in
the implications of Orwell’s novel, I have to believe
that Mr. Pynchon’s stake is a bit bigger.

Much as Orwell "foresaw" a world of electronic
surveillance, falsified history and sham wars,
Pynchon’s own writings (intentionally or not) have had
a prescient quality of their own, envisioning
everything from the internet to the convergence of
computer technology, artificial intelligence and
genetic research, which he presaged in his 1984 essay,
"Is It O.K. to be a Luddite?". Pynchon is also, it
goes without saying, well-versed in the mechanics of
paranoia and conspiracy.

Here, in his first extended bit of published writing
since his introduction to Jim Dodge’s 1997 novel Stone
Junction (an essay which also had quite a bit to say
on matters Orwellian), Pynchon employs a language
that’s simple and straightforward, yet plays with
ideas that are (unsurprisingly) subtle. In the end,
he’s produced the most insightful—and playful—analysis
of the novel I’ve ever read. Pynchon weaves elements
of Orwell’s biography together with various political
and historical events of his day (and our own) to
explain not only what’s going on in 1984, but why, and
where it came from.

At the same time, he deals with the above-mentioned
"snitch" controversy (without saying as much),
dismisses other controversies (like recent claims that
Orwell was an anti-Semite) and demolishes several
overly simplistic readings of the novel.

[...] He does pause briefly at a couple of points to
draw parallels between 1984 and 2003—the use of
doublethink by modern-day politicians and media
outlets, for instance. He even brings up parallels
which aren’t usually brought up: the similarity
between Oceania’s Ministries and our own Department of
Defense (which wages war) and Department of Justice
(which regularly stomps on human and constitutional
rights). Early in the essay, he even hints (again
without saying as much) at the events of September
2001 and the effect such events usually have on the
political outlook of a nation. An attack on one’s own
homeland can suddenly transform peace activists into
dangerous subversives in the minds of most citizens.
It was something Orwell witnessed during the Blitz,
and something we’ve witnessed over the past year and a
half.

As with most everything he writes, Mr. Pynchon’s essay
flows easily through a remarkable range of
topics—technology, historical precedent, Orwell’s
situation and our own, the cuts the Book of the Month
Club wanted to make before releasing the novel,
various characters and the roles they play—and how
fictional characters can develop the nasty habit of
doing things the novelist himself never expected. He
even hints in the closing paragraphs that 1984 ends on
a note perhaps a bit brighter than most of us realize.

As always, it’s a delightful little ride and, all
told, it’s less an introduction to the novel than it
is a commentary written for readers already well
familiar with it.  [...] "

read it all:
<http://www.nypress.com/16/19/books/books.cfm>

I like Knipfel's take on the foreword.  He seems to
recognize that Pynchon's assignment wasn't to write a
textbook or monograph about Orwell, and that Pynchon
takes the opportunity to provide tantalizing glimpses
into his own writing. Dave Monroe is right, the
foreword is at least as much about Pynchon and his
writing as it is about _1984_.

As I mentioned earlier, I suspect that the foreword
points to Pynchon's current novel-in-progress, the way

his 1993 essay "Nearer My Couch to Thee"
<http://www.libyrinth.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_sloth.html>
provides a glimpse at what was to come in M&D,
published in 1997, with its talk of Franklin, time,
dreams, and the fading of "the long-ago age of faith
and miracle, when daily life really was the Holy Ghost
visibly at work and time was a story, with a
beginning, middle and end."

A Pynchon scholar friend suggests that the appearance
of this Foreword may also be read as an alert that a
new Pynchon novel could be on its way, the author
doing what he can to raise his profile a bit --
without plunging into the celebrity author publicity
circuit -- in order to help with the marketing of his
book. I hope he's right.









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<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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