Pynchon's reply

[Robin Landseadel]

On May 20, 2009, at 8:51 AM, Joe Allonby wrote:

> Half & half, please.

Wish I could find the old Tex Avery cartoon, Fox & Droopy as I recall:

"One lump or two?"
"Oh, I have a sweet tooth—seven, please."

[Droopy whips out mallet. . . .]

> Is this making sense or should I just reach for the mallet and say
> "Don't bother, I'll do it myself."

Re-holster your mallet and grab a sarsaparilla.

> All very good points, Robin

Thanks.

>  But assuming authorial intent without real evidence is a minefield.

Copy and Roger that. Charles Hollander's explanation of the author's  
intent is where our paths diverge. On the other hand, Charles  
Hollander is a very good writer, he illuminates many of Pynchon's  
sources/citations and love his work at Positive Feedback Online.

http://www.positive-feedback.com/

What I ran across—thanks in large part to the Dude's writing—is the  
historical backstory of the Pynchon clan. After separating out the  
issue of intent—all those questions concerning why something would end  
up in Pynchon's books—there's still the issue of what gets left in and  
what gets left out of the books. It seems as though, for whatever  
reason, things relating to the Pynchon Family history do end up in  
Thomas Pynchon's books. That line about  "lazy research habits" in  
Pynchon's letter to Hollander seems more in line with looking up  
family history in a library than creating the scaffolding for the  
century's "master cabal." It's kinda like Googling yourself. Thing is,  
looking at the path left in the wake of a forward looking gathering of  
fairly bright people who were in on the ground floor of the creation  
of this country seems to cast off clues to the "master cabal" after all.

> I've encountered this firsthand when people have tried to
> tell my what my lyrics are "about" citing specific people
> and events. Sometimes I just make things up that sound
> like a good story.
>
> Pynchon saturates his stories with so much information that it is
> tempting look for things that might not be there.So, I'll take the guy
> at his word though allowing that he may have been a little
> disingenuous. The self-deprecation of the Slow Learner intro seems
> indicative of an ego firmly held in check and a self-critical view of
> his own work. I'm reminded of the Dylan interviews in "No Direction
> Home" when he cynically toyed with clueless reporters. I won't say
> that Hollander is as inane as a mid-sixties pop reporter. Pynchon
> shows respect for him. But there is a quality of "Come on, aren't you
> reading too much in to this?".

Agreed. Still, looking at family history certain themes come up:  
Heresy, Robber Barons, tax stamps and other irregular philatelic  
collectables, international banking, trains and electricity and other  
offerings that point back at Pynchon & Company, Pynchon vs. Stearns  
and William Pynchon. And then there's the man's own history at Boeing  
and in the Navy. I'm sure that in 1964/66 OBA spent a lot of hours of  
library research on the history of his family, and that seems far more  
human and plausible and do-able than other, more complicated theories.