How many times'd you end up sucking on the rug?

[Henry]

Very nice, John!  New one to me.  I'd love to read more of it.

Can we be sure that "sucking on the rug" is concerned with drugs and not
carpe carpet delicatessen, particularly given the "pussy" vs. "vagina"
elsewhere in the letter?

Henry Mu

-----Original Message-----
From: Carvill John

Has this been seen on the p-list before? Apologies, as usual, if so.
 
A listing (now defunct I think) for a very interesting sounding Pynchon
letter. I'll post the entire text here in case the link dies. Essential
reading I would say. Sorry for the lack of paragraphs, that's, um, inherent
to the listing itself. Definitely worth the effort to read, I promise.
 

334. PYNCHON, Thomas. Autograph Letter Signed. January 21, 1974. 
 
Two tightly printed pages, on both sides of one sheet of graph paper,
written to his friends, authors David [Shetzline] and his wife Mary [M.F.
Beal]. Last paragraph written in pencil, including the signature "Love,
Tom." A lengthy letter, over 1000 words, to two friends who date back to his
college days 15 years earlier. Both Shetzline and Beal were students at
Cornell, and a part of the group that came to be known as the "Cornell
School" of writers, including Pynchon, Richard Fariña, Shetzline and Beal.
Shetzline published two novels in the late 1960s -- Heckletooth 3 and
DeFord, which is dedicated to the memory of Fariña -- and Pynchon wrote
blurbs for both of them. Pynchon also wrote a blurb for M.F. Beal's novel,
Amazon One, about a group of radical activists of the 1960s. She also wrote
what many consider to be the first lesbian/feminist detective novel, Angel
Dance. All of these elements come into play in this remarkable letter, which
deals with literary matters, poli!
 tical matters, and the correspondents' longtime friendship. Written four
months after Gravity's Rainbow was published, the letter sheds light on
Pynchon's state of mind in the aftermath of the work of writing that novel.
The letter starts out apologizing for writing to them together instead of
"one by one but haven't been able to write anything to anybody for a couple
years, and will be lucky even to get through this one letter here..." He
goes on to tell them that his agent, the legendary Candida Donadio, "turns
out to be a closet MF Beal freek [sic] and would really dig to establish
contact..." He advises Mary to write to Candida but says "don't ask me what
about, though, I can't understand any of this literary stuff" -- a
remarkable comment from someone who has just finished writing Gravity's
Rainbow. A long paragraph details events in New York City, where he is
living, including an "Impeachment Rally" in Greenwich Village. Pynchon is
self-consciously disdainful of this !
 round of political activism: "Maybe I am wrong not to show up,!
  after a
ll think of all that great neurotic pussy that always shows up at things
like -- oh, aww, gee Mary, I'm sorry! I meant 'vagina,' of course! -- like
that, and all the biggies who'll be there..." He goes on to describe that he
is having "what the CIA calls a 'mid-life crisis,' looking for another
hustle, cannot dig to live a 'literary' life no more..." A "lump of hash I
lost somewhere in Humboldt County 3 years ago" figures into what becomes an
increasingly textured, complicated narrative, much the way his fiction does,
at the same time that it represents his side of an obviously ongoing
dialogue, and elicits further contact from the recipients: in referring to
stories of bad LSD circulating, he asks "You might as well tell me. How many
times'd you end up sucking on the rug?" A dissection of the general state of
mind among the self-proclaimed hip in New York City follows, and he waxes
nostalgic for the West a couple of times: "Last fall I rode around on the
'Hound for a while.!
  Would've dropped by [their place in northern California] except by the
time I got in your neighborhood I was bummed out..." Future "master plan"
was "to go across the sea, but now I don't know. I've sort of been keying my
plans on Geraldine, part of general resolution not to impose shit on her,
also cz I'm lazy and can't make decisions... so maybe we will head west, and
then again maybe not, but if we do we'll be by your place, OK?" A remarkable
letter, exhibiting all of the characteristics for which Pynchon's writing is
known, and many of the concerns that he raises in his writings, and
addressed to two of his closest and oldest friends. Pynchon even used
Shetzline's name in Gravity's Rainbow: Shetzline was credited with having
written the "classic study" of "the property of time-modulation peculiar to
Oneidine." Folded in twelfths for mailing, else fine in hand-addressed
envelope folded in fourths. In content and style, probably the best Pynchon
letter we have ever seen. 

http://lopezbooks.com/catalog/127/127-10.html
 
'bout half-ways down the page.
 
 
I found this link about a week back, browsing pretty much at random on The
Fictional Woods. What a find!
 
 
Cheers
JC