Tossing horses at the wall to see what pricks

[Terrance]

Malignd wrote:
> 
> <<The speculations of MalignD ... remind us that it is
> not the reader's part to recapture the author's
> original emotions and state of mind. >>


You wrote: 


"A reasonable surmise might be that Pynchon, like
University student Kara C. Chiodo, chose to begin his
piece on Orwell with Orwell's parentage, noting the
colorful detail of his father's employ in the Opium
Department." 


Surmising that P chose to begin his Foreword in the same way that Kara
C. Chado chose to begin hers (even though it's a fact that both chose to
begin their respective essays with Orwell's parentage) amounts to
conjecture about P's state of mind (not the choice he made but the
why).  Perhaps the literary and cultural conventions he is either
following or modifying, play an important role. I'll grant that Chiodo's
biography and P's Foreword cross over at convention. However, my point
is that your speculations were about P making choices and that such
speculations remind us that it is not the business of the reader to 
recapture the author's original emotions and state of mind.