What Pynchon wrote?

[Paul Nightingale]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of Terrance
> Sent: 27 May 2003 18:27
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: What Pynchon wrote?
> 
> 
> 
> Paul Nightingale wrote:
> >
> > The opening paragraph juxtaposes 'Blair' to 'Orwell'. You yourself
have
> > insisted, several times, on referring to the author as 'Blair';
> > presumably you have a reason for that. Such name changes are not
> > uncommon, of course, for writers and celebrities of one kind or
another.
> > Nonetheless, there is a gap between nom-de-plume and family-name.
For O
> > himself it might have been symbolic, given his move away from the
> > circumstances of his upbringing. O-as-author also signifies the
texts
> > that bear his name, as well as the man himself.
> 
> What significance do you attribute to P addressing the identity
> question?
> I prefer Blair to Orwell and Orwellian, which have become nearly
> synonymous with "1984-like."

You seem to be saying "Orwell" comes with cultural baggage attached. I
would agree entirely, although I don't think you necessarily solve the
problem (indeed, is it a 'problem'?) by using "Blair": this only
confuses people if they don't know what you're doing.

In fact, if I read you correctly, what you're doing is distinguishing
between Blair-the-man and Orwell-the-text. Again, this is another reason
for sticking with Orwell: we're talking about texts after all. Moreover,
I would take this one step further and juxtapose Blair/the world (ie the
real, flesh-&-blood human being who really does live and breath) to
Orwell/history-as-writing/the text ... which is precisely the opposition
that P makes. Which I think answers your first question.

P will return to the question of identity when discussing
Orwell-as-dissident (the anti-fascist passage, the anti-bourgeois
passage).