Pynchon fax

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 1:04 AM
Subject: Re: Pynchon fax

> >
> > Right, but the Playboy, even if it's "only" PB-Japan, isn't nothing.
> > If the
> > "interview" (I have trouble calling this an interview, there are no
> > questions and answers) is a hoax and he has never talked to anybody from
> > Tokyo he's got the right, if not even responsibility to demand a
> > counterstatement.
>
> I've not said that Playboy Japan is nothing, but it's certainly not Paris
> Review. I think you're overreacting ridiculously;

To claim that I'm overreacting ridiculously is a ridiculous overreaction. To
me it seems more that you are on a quest (thanks, Keith) against the piece
because you disagree with his critical attitude in it:

"People often mention that one of the reasons why they hate America is
because she is rich. I can understand this well. When I see wealthy people,
I feel anger instinctively from the bottom of my heart. It is natural for
them to feel a hatred for wealthy America, as Afghanistan is the poorest
country in the world. They just cannot help from hating her. It is not going
to solve all the problems even if America stops supporting Israel. However,
from the Arab perspective, Israel is the origin of all the wrongs."

But what he's doing here is undeniably discussing the root causes of
Islamist terrorism, a thing that had been forbidden after 9/11 -- everybody
who did it back then had been accused of supporting the terrorist case.

> it's entirely reasonable
> that he would ignore it altogether (if, indeed, he is even aware of it).
>

Sorry, but this is all very unlikely and not at all reasonable. It's very
unlikely that he has talked to someone from Playboy Japan and believed that
they wouldn't print it: "Hey, I'll tell you some of my post 9/11-feelings if
you don't print it. You know I'm a reclusive author. Watch the "Simpsons" in
January 2004."

If it's a fake I wouldn't ignore it, would you? Being quoted falsely by a
sex-mag like the Playboy?

> I was under the impression that it wasn't a Playboy Japan journalist he
> was
> supposed to have given the "interview" to. That there now seems to be
> confusion about whether it was a "talk" or a "chat" or an "interview" (let
> alone when and where it took place and in what language, why there was
> never
> an English transcription, and why it was never published outside Japan),
> and
> over the interviewer's relationship with the publication, makes its status
> even more dubious. Has anyone approached Pynchon's agent or publisher to
> try
> to validate its authenticity?
>

First, it has been published outside Japan, in translation, on the internet.

Second, did you try to prove that it's a fake if it's so important to you?

> >> I seriously doubt that
> >> you'll ever find the Japan Playboy piece included in a collection of
> >> Pynchon works under the author's name.
> >
> > Depends on how you understand "collection" -- if you mean a printed
> > bibliography you might be wrong already.
>
> I'm not sure on which planet "collection of Pynchon works" means
> "bibliography".

On the planet Earth, Solar System, Local Bubble, Orion's Arm, Milky Way.
(sorry, file under "couldn't resist")

>
> If ever Pynchon puts out a collection of his non-fiction
> pieces, introductions to other works, public statements etc I doubt that
> he'll include the Playboy Japan piece. I agree that Pynchon Notes would
> include it, like the Tinasky letters or the J.C. Batchelor article
> claiming
> Pynchon and Salinger are one and the same, in its Bibliography as part of
> the overall Pynchon story -- I'm not sure what John or the other editors
> actually make of it, however.
>

I guess they're in doubt what to make of it like we are.

> I'm keeping an open mind until reliable evidence is produced; brain-dead
> denials of other possibilities, including the possibility that Pynchon
> wasn't aware that his words were going to be published in Playboy Japan,
> don't constitute reliable evidence, no matter how often they're parroted.
>

But we don't need "reliable evidence" to read it as it has been presented to
us. This isn't a criminal case. It has been in the Playboy, and Mrs Jackson
did not publish a counterstatement. In my opinion the burden of proof is on
your side. And you are repeating your arguments over and over.

> ***
>
> >> The way the "reclusive author"
> >> mystique he has nurtured over the years has actually become his brand
> >> name.
> >>
> >I don't think that I agree to you when you say he's nurtured this
> > "reclusive author"-thing:
>
> [...]
> >
> > He began avoiding public appearances at the beginning of his career
>
> Precisely. And that is why reviewers and journalists continually refer to
> him as a "reclusive author". Pynchon has chosen to remain aloof, and that
> has become his trademark.

Trademark is a nice word. For me his trademark are a number of excellent
novels. Your opinion is contrary to his own words about the term
"reclusive" as he said in the CNN-interview. I have always understood that
statement that he doesn't regard himself as especially reclusive. I think
his attitude is merely consequent and I appreciate it.

> There is a mystique about Pynchon the man which
> sets him apart from Roth, DeLillo, Updike, and even Gaddis when he was
> alive. His self-characterisation on The Simpsons plays on this.
>

Calling it a "mystique" means making the same mistake as the Dubini-Bros.
His self-characterisation on The Simpsons indeed plays on this laughable
media-label.

> > when
> > McCarthyism and anti-communist witch-hunts were still going on in the
> > USA.
> > For a writer like him enough reason to be a little shy I'd say.
>
> I'm not sure that his choice (and he wasn't in the spotlight until _V._
> was
> published in 1963) had anything to do with McCarthyism and the
> anti-communist witchhunts of the '50s, and these certainly haven't had any
> bearing on why he has decided to maintain his avoidance over the next four
> decades.
>
> ***
>

Where do you get that certainty from? As "Vineland" clearly shows Pynchon
sees a continuity from the 50's witchhunts to the 60's repression and the
anti-drug war. He may have reasons we can't even speculate about.

"The personnel changed, the Repression went on, growing wider, deeper, and
less visible, regardless of the names in power (...)." (72)

"(...) Troopers evicted the members of a commune in Texas, beating the boys
with slapjack, grabbing handcuffed girls by the pussy, smacking little kids
around, and killing the stock (...)." (199)

"You're up against the True Faith here, some heavy dudes, talking crusades,
retribution, closed ideological minds passing on  the Christian Capitalist
Faith intact, mentor to protégé, generation to generation, living inside
their power, convinced they're immune to all the history the rest of us have
to suffer." (232)
----------------------

But my main point is and will be that I believe that he simply wants to lead
such a normal life as possible. For the sake of his son and, as I believe,
as an artist to remain able to "listen to the American voices around."
(SL 22)

Otto