CoL49: (2) Giants of the Aerospace Industry

[rich]

and one of the better pieces to appear in Pynchon Notes, IMHO

rich

__________

While looking for the connection of Rocketdyne to Boeing, found this
re-post of a "Pynchon Notes" article on Pynchon's writing at Boeing:



On 5/11/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> On May 11, 2009, at 12:38 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:
>
>> Robin:
>>
>>> "Yoyodyne" points to Rocketdyne, one of the giants of the space
>>> industry during NASA's heyday, developing their company by reverse-
>>> engineering V-2's and expanding into making rocket engines for ICBM's
>>> and the sixties space program.
>>
>> Good stuff about Rocketdyne, Robin - thanks. In addition to
>> Rocketdyne,
>> I think it is safe to assume that Yoyodyne also has a lot in common
>> with
>> Boeing, which Pynchon of course knew at first hand.
>
> While looking for the connection of Rocketdyne to Boeing, found this
> re-post of a "Pynchon Notes" article on Pynchon's writing at Boeing:
>
> 	Early in 1960, after having graduated from Cornell and while
> 	writing V., Thomas Pynchon moved to Seattle and began
> 	working for the Boeing Airplane Company. What Pynchon did
> 	while working at Boeing has puzzled scholars almost from the
> 	moment of the very private author's literary debut. When we try
> 	to delve into his stint at Boeing--first mentioned by Lewis
> 	Nichols and Dick Schaap--we reach dead ends or find
> 	conflicting information. Yet Pynchon's time at Boeing is perhaps
> 	the most documented period of his life, and over the years a
> 	number of interesting (though not always accurate) bits of
> 	information have emerged.
>
> 	Here I first recount the previous scholarship on this phase of
> 	Pynchon's career and consider its weaknesses. Next, I detail
> 	my own research and conclusions, namely that while at Boeing,
> 	Pynchon wrote primarily for an internal newsletter--none of
> 	whose articles have bylines--called Bomarc Service News (first
> 	mentioned by Richard Lane), and that in two and a half years of
> 	work he produced some twenty-five to thirty technical articles for
> 	this newsletter. I discuss these articles and the criteria for
> 	attributing their authorship, and finish with a comprehensive
> 	annotated list of those I attribute to Pynchon. In this way, I hope
> 	to solve what has been one of the longest-running mysteries in
> 	Pynchon scholarship, as well as bring to light the depth and
> 	range of Pynchon's expertise on the Bomarc missile--an
> 	expertise which almost certainly inspired and underlies
> 	Gravity's Rainbow.
>
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6750/is_46-49/ai_n28819965/?tag=content;col1
>