Pynchon's interviews

[pynchonoid]

I wonder at the wisdom of finding some defect in the
fact that Pynchon chooses not to follow other authors
onto the op-ed page, lecture and TV circuit. I suspect
that Pynchon, having taken a good look at the way
writers and what they have to say are treated in the
media, has wisely decided to say what he has to say in
his writing, with the exception of an occasional
interview or an essay/book intro/etc. Just watching
the way fellow New York writer Norman Mailer has made
a fool of himself in public from time to time may
would be enough. 

It's a mistake to discount the risk Pynchon took in
comparing post-9//11 US with Orwell's neofascist
dystopia, too.  Pynchon published his _1984_
introduction at a time when artists are routinely
slimed for not lining up to cheer for Bush's so-called
"war on terror".  The only reason his essay didn't
create more waves is because US media ignores all
book-related developments that aren't actively
promoted in the appropriate media channels in order to
push product through the corresponding retail
distribution channels (the sort of thing that DeLillo
has to do when he's got a new book or project, which
Pynchon can avoid because he's got an audience that
buys his books whether or not he's out there promoting
them).  If Pynchon had mounted an author tour to
promote the new _1984_ edition, his doubts about Bush
-- not to mention his more nuanced observations --
would have been fodder for the likes of Bill O'Reilly
and Rush Limbaugh if they weren't ignored altogether,
viewed only by the dedicated fans willing to comb
C-SPAN for a late-night replay.  

Meanwhile, Pynchon's books, each of them a perennial
backlist bestseller,  reach a new generation of
readers each year, worldwide.  A library of books has
been written about them, a community of scholars
studies them, a small army of writers and other arists
find inspiration in them.  Pynchon's influence thus
filters into the culture at a fundamental level, with
lasting impact, instead of evaporating more or less
immediately with the rest of the comments bandied
about by flavor-of-the-month media personalities.


McM:
>>> It’s doubly disappointing that
his public comments to Japanese Playboy were so banal
and inept. <<<

Disappointing from the author of GR. Not so surprising
from the author 
of Vineland. [...] 


...disappointing, perhaps, to somebody who can't read
and appreciate Pynchon's comments in Playboy Japan's
original Japanese translation.  The discussion here on
Pynchon-L has been centered on a quick-and-dirty
re-translation of Pynchon's remarks from PJ's Japanese
translation of P's original English remarks, with no
input from any Japanese speaker reacting to the
interview as published by Playboy Japan.  


	
		
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