Back to the Future

[Paul Mackin]

On Nov 25, 2007 1:02 PM,  <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> If, when discussion of this novel was first unleashed on the world, there
> was general knowledge that Pynchon & Company had their hands in
> all of these threads---lighter than air travel, scientific textbooks
> from a generation previous, laws on property and property rights,
> investments in mines and railroads, investments in electrical power and
> gas-works, monies directly invested in Edison & Tesla---if we knew in
> November of 2006 that the Pynchons were a big family with a big
> investment house that made a big fall in the wake of putting a little too
> much faith [and other people's credit] in talkies---if we knew that before
> we started the book, do you think the reviews might have come out
> different?

Different is what way?

You mean perhaps the reviewers would have felt compelled to talk about
Pynchon & Company and how it influenced writing the book?

That'd be if anyone actually thought it did.

Or if they saw author motivation as of much relevance in reviewing a new book.

Two big ifs.

No reason to spoil the fun however.

Let me ask this question.

Other than name identification what persuasive reason would author
Pynchon have for being so obsessed by  the downfall of a Wall Street
brokerage firm  (who for all we know might have been a bunch of
cheating scoundrels) that he would let it direct his writing? It's not
as if P's own family fortunes had been compromised in any way.  George
M. Pynchon (head of P and company) wasn't  a close relative.  Does
anyone know what kind of cousin he actually was. Third, Fourth, Fifth?
  At a certain point we're all related.

Of course, nothing is inconceivable. Joyce wasn't that closely related
to Odysseus and Penelope either.