Hitchens on Pynchon

[Michael Bailey]

just to softpedal my point (that I doubt there's any other way that he
<or anyone> could engage an audience as effectively as he does in his
books, that the special form of communication between reader and
author is unique, and competence in that is enough of a task to occupy
a committed person as a life work, and so forth)...

I will admit that I'd probably travel to see him speak, and most of us
on the list probably would too...

perhaps he shows up at the Pynchon symposia - I understand there's one
deep in Europe this year - in disguise, recognized only by the
cognoscenti

only way to find out is to attend one, or many...

the way to get invited to his crib as somebody that he doesn't already
know, that I know of, is to be Salman Rushdie - being Christopher
Hitchens doesn't quite get you in the door, I guess, although a phone
call isn't bad.  The other person I think I read that he called out of
the blue was Harlan Ellison to enlist the latter's involvement in a
refusal to pay tax during the Vietnam War as a protest - Ellison
complied, or so I read, and had to go to court and pay a big fine
eventually...

Vietnam War protest was one time that he did go public (name among
those on an open letter in the times or something)