IV "autobiographical"?

[Mark Kohut]

Laura writes so rightly that we cannot forget that TRP was writing the greatest novel of the second half of the 20th Century at this time. So true.

Doug writes: the idea, generally accepted as gospel truth, that Pynchon was so messed up on drugs when he wrote GR that he later couldn't remember what he had been writing, or whatever it is precisely that JS wrote about Pynchon back in the day -- it's a great story, but since even that journalist doesn't mention that anybody else was in the room when Pynchon supposedly told him that, I don't necessarily take it as true, it can't be corroborated, and it may not be wise to take what the reporter says at face value.  

I have come late to that story but have always distrusted it for Laura's reasons.

It was Lionel Trilling, I believe, when writng about the so-many American writers who were alcoholics, who simply showed: Not when they were writing.

--- On Thu, 8/27/09, Doug Millison <dougmillison at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Doug Millison <dougmillison at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: IV "autobiographical"?
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009, 11:56 PM
> How to separate Pynchon the person
> from the characters in his books? This is the question that
> seems to animate Pynchon-L more than any other.
> 
> In one sense, I know that's impossible, how could his
> creations in any way be separate from the author?
> 
> At the same time I also know how an artist can in fact
> achieve enough distance from a work of art to let it develop
> and breathe on its own, shaping it as it grows to be sure,
> yet aware that something new has entered the picture,
> something which is not identical with the author.  I
> don't know how to account for this in critical theory, but I
> know a tiny little bit about how it works in practice.
> 
> The second big question that has led to much p-list
> hand-wringing, heartbreak, and laughter over the years,
> yielding fault lines that exist to this very day: 
> What, exactly, does Pynchon mean by putting his characters
> in the situations where we find them, acting and speaking as
> they do?
> 
> I try to be careful about making categorical statements in
> that regard, knowing that readers can generally keep coming
> up with details in P's texts, like grabbing verses from the
> Bible, to make their points.  His books, IV included,
> are complex enough to  support many nterpretations from
> a variety of intelligent and reasonable people.  There
> are enough differences in the various critical and
> theoretical approaches that readers bring to Pynchon's
> novels to produce startling differences in interpretation,
> too.  Enough rich chocolaty goodness to give us each
> our own Pynchon, if we want or need one.  I mean, we
> could read IV through the lens of the Holocaust, if we
> wanted to do that, it's hardly a stretch  when we've
> got a wanna-be Nazi wolf man in Chapter 1, textually linked
> to the future Blicero as described in GR, if I understood
> correctly what was posted the other day in that regard.
> 
> IF Pynchon somehow intends Doc as an autobiographical
> stand-in for his historical self --- a BIG if and
> problematic for all kinds of reasons, in my opinion -- that
> would be quite a statement he's making about himself, based
> on what we see of Doc in Ch 1 and what we know of him from
> the book trailer video that Pynchon
> narrates.   I mean, IF Pynchon intends Doc to
> be himself, what does it mean that he gives Doc a back story
> that includes helping the police set up drug busts and
> shake-down scams?  Would he be setting us up for a tale
> of redemption, where we grow to love Doc despite his
> checkered past?  Or what?
> 
> Do we know enough about Pynchon's actual biography to nail
> down any of this as truly autobiographical?
> 
> Some of what is taken as given about Pynchon is in fact
> problematic:  the idea, generally accepted as gospel
> truth, that Pynchon was so messed up on drugs when he wrote
> GR that he later couldn't remember what he had been writing,
> or whatever it is precisely that JS wrote about Pynchon back
> in the day -- it's a great story, but since even that
> journalist doesn't mention that anybody else was in the room
> when Pynchon supposedly told him that, I don't necessarily
> take it as true, it can't be corroborated, and it may not be
> wise to take what the reporter says at face value. 
> When I know, from first-hand communication with that writer,
> that he had a specific axe to grind wrt to TRP, and when you
> realize to what an extent that particular journalist seems
> to have been driven by jealousy and a desire for revenge, I
> have to wonder if he might have been exaggerating or even
> inventing out of whole cloth the idea that Pynchon 
> somehow was lucky enough to get drugged up and reach into
> the clouds and pull out GR whole, because that apocryphal
> anecdote is of a piece by other statements by this
> journalist that add up to the concept that TRP isn't really
> that great a writer -- in a book that was published around
> the time M&D was released, this journo even has his old
> girlfriend claim that he the journalist was the true poet
> while Pynchon was just a poseur and parasite, or something
> to that effect.
> 
> It may be easier to find bits and pieces of the historical
> Pynchon scattered throughout IV.  I suspect that in
> part what he's done with IV is to work in all kinds of
> references to his personal past and to touch on a number of
> things in his various books that seem important to him at
> this stage of his career and life.  I don't think it's
> as simple as any single character standing in for Pynchon or
> somebody from his life.  Not claiming any special
> knowledge or insight, just stating my suspicions, with no
> need to find anything in particular in IV.  Just along
> for the ride and the fun of it.
>