Timeline

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I think it's relevant that Pynchon was living in NYC on 9-11 in understanding the "creature from the north attacking the city" sequence, among others.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>Sent: Feb 10, 2009 11:51 AM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Timeline
>
>The problem about this taboo concerning Pynchon's "Private Life" is  
>that the man [like it or not] is a public figure from a family full of  
>[historical] public figures and that he is an authorial voice who  
>reflects the times and the places where he's living in his writing.
>
>Gravity's Rainbow makes more sense if one has a understanding of  
>things that were happening 1966-1973, in particular working backwards  
>from obvious influences on Pynchon's writing—like Norman O. Brown or  
>the Yippies or Richard Nixon's various paranoias or even the  L.A  
>freeway system in the Hippie/Yippie era—that can best be understood in  
>the context of the time and place where the book was being written.  
>Similarly, Vineland makes much more sense if one knows of the  
>activities of Earth First at the time the novel was issued. In  
>addition to the FBI/Cointelpro subplots of both Vineland and the Earth  
>First! saga, there are also subplots of Judi Bari's private life that  
>may be part of Vineland's design as well:
>
>	For personal and political reasons, Bari preferred to believe that
>
>	 she had been the victim of an attack by the timber industry, or
>
>	by some other political enemy, even the FBI. After all, that was
>
>	her public persona — the martyr of a radical environmental
>
>	movement.
>
>
>
>	But deep down she could not escape the idea that the person
>
>	who bombed her might have been Sweeney, a man with a
>
>	violent past. Bari never admitted this fear in public. It's a secret
>
>	she only told a handful of close friends.
>
>
>
>http://www.theava.com/bari/talbot.html
>
>http://netowne.com/conspiracy/politics/index.htm
>
>The point where the political becomes all too personal is a central  
>theme of Vineland.
>
>My guess is that Vineland was written relatively quickly* and that the  
>author's awareness of what was going on in "Vineland" [that land  
>stretching from Mendocino to Eureka] during the time the novel was  
>written is very much to the point, just as living in Manhattan during  
>9/11 is very much to the point in Against the Day.
>
>Understanding Pynchon's writing requires that [at least to a certain  
>limited extent] we find out "who is that man behind the curtain?" I'm  
>not talking about going through the man's trash, but knowing that  
>Pynchon worked for Boeing or that he's lived in or near surfing  
>communities or that he comes from a long line of intellectual gifted  
>and sometimes heretical Pynchons is relevant in understanding his  
>writing. Particularly in Vineland or The Crying of Lot 49, where time  
>and place are critical to the stories in those novels. I'm sure that  
>time and place will be very much to the point in Inherent Vice.  
>Connecting the dots concerning what we already know about the author  
>yields plenty of useful information regarding the man's novels.  
>Knowing about the landmark decision "Pynchon vs. Stearns" illuminates  
>The Crying of Lot 49:
>
>http://tinyurl.com/dk9rkr
>
>Knowing about Thomas Ruggles Pynchon  III:
>
>http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/services/articles_gbr48.asp
>
>. . . and his "Introduction to Chemical Physics":
>
>http://books.google.com/books?id=da8LAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA16&dq=Thomas+Ruggles+Pynchon+III+trinity
>
>. . . illuminates both Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day.
>
>*(David Streitfeld said in the Washington Post on August 9, 1992 that  
>he had seen a copy of the Vineland manuscript three months before  
>publication and that "It was basically a rough draft, meaning he did a  
>lot of work at the last minute. This certainly didn't take 17 years.")
>
>http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/msg/ddc442f03369d0cc
>
>On Feb 10, 2009, at 7:31 AM, rich wrote:
>
>> could be easily done using various databases but I think it comes
>> close to crossing that line into his private life
>>
>> imho
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On 2/9/09, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Robin's recent post on TRPs whereabouts for @ 10 years in California
>>> leads me to ask: Has anyone done a timeline, albeit uncertain,
>>> of TRP's places of residence year by year, work by work?
>>>
>>> One sees this kind of thing in some bios and forewords of writers
>>> and their books.
>
>
>