A Trove of New Works by Thomas Pynchon?

[Dave Monroe]

And concluding from Adrian Wisnicki, "A Trove of New
Works by Thomas Pynchon?  Bomarc Service News
Rediscovered," Pynchon Notes 46-49 (Spring-Fall
2000-2001), pp. 9-34 ...

   "Now for Bomarc Service News....  In short, the
articles provide highly detailed information, 'by the
book' (to quote Richard Lane), and to the point, but
perhaps dry to the nonspecialist.
   "A closer look at the issue, however, challenges
such a generalization ....

[...]

"Not quite by the book, to be sure....

[...]

"We get casual, conversational address to the reader
... amd so,e quirky material, as in 'Togetherness,'
rather in excess of the topic.

[...]

"Quirky excess material suddenly becomes illuminating.
 In addition ... erudite references ....  That is, the
articles dipslay the constant and easy shifting of
narrative registers and mixing of the arcane and the
popular that also mark Pynchon's fiction.

[...]

"... the allusion to a 'favorite weed' is certainly
suggestive....

[...]

"... the writer effortlessly shifts narrative
registers and displays historical erudition, including
... a reference to the V-2 ...

[...]

"The probable Pynchon articles are characterized by
free use of the second person, by frequent shifts of
narrative register, by surprising connections among
arcane facts, by occassional literary references ...
and by a converstaional/instructive tone consistent
with that of 'Togetherness.' ...

[...]

   "Yet the Bomarc material does present some
difficulties.  At first encounter, one might tend to
see Pynchon everywhere or nowhere in Bomarc Service
News.... the differentiae are not absolute....

[...]

   "The articles I attribute to Pynchon also dipaly
larger and more significant patterns in subject matter
and style.... Pynchon's articles focus on a limited
number of thems....  In addition to the tpics, the
articles are distinguished by their style, the
conversational addresses to the reader and the
emphatically instructive, even didactic, tone ....

[...]

"In short, Pynchon lectures the reader, and teh
perfectionist bent exhibited ... mirrors a
biographical detail reported by Nichols: Pynchon 'is a
tireless reseracher and, caught in a minor error,
suffers the humiliation of the damned' (8).
   "Perhaps most important from a literary point of
view, articles attributable to Pynchon ciontain
erudite historical discussions.  Some passages, for
example, relate directly to Gravity's Rainbow ....

[bit on the A4/V-2 here ...]

"Other passages might best be described as suggestive,
such as the foloowing discussion from '"Teflon" in
Depth' ...

[Du Pont ...]

"It hardly takes an imaginative leap to see how, in
terms of both chemical and historical information, the
Teflon article could have provided creative insiration
for the mysterious Imipolex G in Gravity's Rainbow.
   "So the more one reads Bomarc Service News, the
more one discovers ways  Pynchon's work at Boeing
seems to have inspired the creation of his fiction. 
One also gains a better understanding of the true
range of Pynchon's engineering expertise, an expertise
surpassing that displayed in even the more demanding
technical passages of Gravity's Rainbow....  though
anumber of uncertainties necessarily remain...." (pp.
16-24)

Wisnicki above again cites from ...

Nichols, Lewis.  "In and Out of Books."
   New York Times Book Review, 28 April 1963: 8.

the remiander of the essay is an annotated
bibli