The Ice Storm & GR

[Paul Nightingale]

For whatever reason this has become more interesting since I first posted
the, admittedly unlikely (?), reference in GR to the Watergate plumbers.
According to the Washington Post timeline Dave M posted, the term 'plumbers'
was first used with reference to the Ellsberg case in 1971, which predates
comfortably Pynchon's delivery of a typescript to his publishers in January
1972. According to Gerald Howard "the untitled novel that Pynchon delivered
... is at least 99 percent the book that readers of Gravity's Rainbow
encountered" (Bookforum, June-Sept, 2005, 36), although he is unable to
provide any sound evidence in support. The Watergate shit didn't hit the fan
until 1973, after the publication of GR in February; but the news story that
made Woodstein's reputation was well under way in the middle of 1972, and
would surely have been picked up by any astute Nixon-watcher.

I accept (clumsy/lazy reading the first time) that Moody was probably
referring, not to GR, but to his own novel (I mean, as if ...). Nonetheless,
the media term 'plumbers' might have attracted P's attention when he was
still 'finishing' the version he would hand in to his publisher, if only
because it jumped into the toilet, so to speak. Beyond that, there is an
interesting question, one we cannot answer--how far did P continue to write
and rewrite the novel after January 1972? The OED gives a reference for
'plumbers' in Time, for August 1972, which probably means the term has been
in circulation for quite a while. I suppose I'm thinking of the
famous/notorious example of Joyce and Ulysses; but if you've written
something like that it might be difficult to 'let it go' until you really
have to (so to speak).