A Few Thoughts...

[Monte Davis]

Roman Kudryashov sez:

> had we not known he did not like publicity, we 
> would have been safe to say he was just a regular 
> guy somewhere...

We might even be safe to say it anyway. I submit that "not liking publicity"
requires an explanation ONLY if you take for granted celebrity culture in
general, the publicity machine aroung many (not all) other novelists, and
the God-given right of the fan to know all about the object of his
affection. If you don't.

> Sure enough, people seemed to think he was an
> authority on entropy, but he admits, no, not really.

Several good points here. A lot of the critical literature and reviews
reveal an exaggerated "two cultures" awe at TRP's uses of science and
technology. That tells us more about how stone ignorant of science most
novelists and professional  discuss-ers  of novels are, and therefore how
over-impressed they are by any moderate familiarity with science and
interest in it, than it does about Pynchon's expertise. Richard Powers often
gets the same response. 


(BTW, I've been having P-list server and/or subscription and/or Verizon feed
problems since at least Friday, have re-subscribed and am working from the
WASTE archive at present.)
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