P's interviews

[pynchonoid]

jbor:
[...]specifically, he has
never spoken to a member of the press in order to
publicise himself, his
opinions, or his work.[...]

How does an author talk with a journalist or
researcher -- as Pynchon has done several times in the
interviews he's given, where he has responded to
questions with answers he knows will be published,
either in an interview format (as in Playboy Japan; or
when his comments to CNN and answers to CNN's
questions were broadcast, when he allowed himself to
be interviewed on the telephone by a CNN producer in
1997), or in the body of a larger work (as in the case
of his interview with the author of Positively 4th
Street) -- without publicizing himself and his
opinions?  If he didn't want to do that, he would have
avoided talking with them in the first place, in other
words, he wouldn't have let himself be interviewed.

jbor:
[...] which pretty
firmly establishes his scorn for journalists, and the
unlikelihood of him
ever giving, or having given, an interview to
one.[...]

As the CNN article
<http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/05/pynchon> clearly
illustrates, Pynchon made his comments about the
"reclusive author" label in the course of a telephone
interview with CNN -- an interview that Pynchon
himself initiated. 

It's funny to see people here on Pynchon-L continuing
to perpetuate the "reclusive author" misnomer/myth (by
continuing to claim, in the face of facts to the
contrary, that Pynchon doesn't do interviews) that
Pynchon has, in his interview with CNN and in his
performance on last Sunday's Simpsons, rejected and
ridiculed. 

"Interview" can mean whatever a person says it means,
I suppose, but some of the widely recognized meanings
of the word can be found here:
<http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=interview>


"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare
went on.
"I do, " Alice hastily replied; "at least I mean what
I say, that's the same thing, you know."
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter.  "Why,
you might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is
the same thing as "I eat what I see!" 




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