Fw: Fwd: On Why Pynchon Will Never Win the Nobel

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

You've made this kind of statement several times. Two problems, imo:

a) Pynchon has changed over the years and is playing a public role now 
anyway.
He's doing blurbs, gives his voice for "The Simpsons", wrote that letter 
in defense of McEwan.
Pynchon even put out an airport novel - Inherent Vice - primarily there 
for movie adaptation.
Since he met his wife and agent, he's not the writer anymore to follow 
the policy he once coined.
Yes, CNN had to pixel his face, but he talked to them on the phone and 
they put it on the air.
This whole issue about Pynchon being 'reclusive' is by now more or less 
a marketing trick.

b) It's true that the Nobel Committee was pissed about Sartre's "I'd 
better prefer not to" back then.
However, to say that "one thing the Swedish Academy wants is a winner 
who will come to Oslo" is
putting far too much emphasis on it. Since you mention Elfriede Jelinek: 
She, who rarely leaves
the house, did not come to Oslo! Her speech was read out. And the 
Swedish Academy knew about
this when they gave her the Prize. So I guess Mrs. Jackson could read 
out Pynchon's speech.

Your whole argument sounds a little bit like ... Sour Grapes.

Not only would we all be happy (hey, at least the value of our cultural 
capital is rising!),
Tom and Melanie - I'm sure about that! - would be too.


On 05.10.2011 02:34, Mark Kohut wrote:

> My best statement of the argument...
> Came close to mainstream publication in three different outlets...
> So it goes.
> 	I've shared On Why Pynchon Will Never Win the Nobel 
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q_kOF8yXFDHY3-CI7O-x6pb31pLqhvrHXInXtSk3ujY/edit> 
>
>
> Click to open:
>
>     * On Why Pynchon Will Never Win the Nobel
>       <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q_kOF8yXFDHY3-CI7O-x6pb31pLqhvrHXInXtSk3ujY/edit>
>
> On Why Pynchon Will Never Win the Nobel
> Ladbroke’s, the famous odds-maker of almost everything, has just 
> declared Thomas Pynchon the American writer with the best odds to win 
> the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, rumored to
> ba announced next Thursday, October 6. 10 to 1.
> Don’t take them. You will lose. No matter how much you may believe he 
> deserves it.
> Why?. As those who have followed and talked within publishing circles 
> about the Nobel Committee agree, the awarding of the Nobel is very 
> important for the prestige of the Nobel. And one thing the Swedish 
> Academy wants is a winner who will come to Oslo, accept the award and 
> give a speech about the importance of literature that may resound as 
> Faulkner’s, say, has. One worth any number of lesser speeches--and 
> writers.  Ever since Jean-Paul  Sartre refused the Prize, we 
> hear,--writers can be so anti-establishment!--we can sum up their 
> concern with  a spin on Groucho’s famous line: The Swedish Academy 
> will never invite into their Club someone who will not join.
> And Pynchon will not. Ever. Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is--and has 
> always been--the most reclusive major American writer of them all.  No 
> pictures exist beyond a high school and a Navy one. His Cornell 
> University permanent record file is....missing.  Salinger hated all 
> publicity and it led him to New Hampshire after his success; Pynchon 
> believes in privacy deeper than any anti-publicity predilictions. It 
> is part of his coherent, comprehensive vision of human beings in the 
> modern world different than in Salinger.
> “Don’t follow leaders; watch the parking meters” sings Pynchon 
> contemporary Bob Dylan.  That line can bring Max Weber, the great 
> sociologist, to mind, quoted in and very influential for Gravity's 
> Rainbow and still rippling through Against the Day. In Weber's famous 
> essay "Politics as a Vocation", he touches bottom on how a 'leader' 
> emerges out of any group of people: charisma does it. Charisma: being 
> seen to be differently better--naturally exceptional. People recognize 
> the quality--and want to please whoever has it. A leader is a 
> charismatic individual who can command followers. To want followers, 
> however-- like politicians and religious figures, which are Weber's 
> examples---is where the truth of 'power corrupts' begins. The truth 
> that power corrupts emerges everywhere in Pynchon’s works.  From 
> Gravity's Rainbow: "One of the dearest Postwar hopes: that there 
> should be no room for a terrible disease like charisma." The villain 
> in Vineland, is defined as charismatic. Contrast with a deliberately 
> offhand image of a pile of T-shirts used by all in Against the Day. 
>  Mr. Pynchon wants no followers of any kind and the deeper into him 
> one reads, the more one can learn that follow oneself could be 
> Pynchon's equivalent of Socrates' know thyself.
>         I suggest that for Thomas Pynchon, to accept any public 
> adulation, any award, any honor is by definition to be singled 
> out--you  have to read him to get other resonances for this phrase as 
> well--and would be the mirroring of charisma  and a deeply 
> hypocritical act. Many Pynchon fans feel that the awarding of
> the Nobel to Elfride Jellinecka few years ago, whose body of work 
> includes translating Gravity’s Rainbow into German, was the closest 
> Pynchon will ever get to a Nobel.
>         However Mr. Pynchon may feel that he has not lived up to his 
> own ideals,-- he may feel slothful, like Dr. Johnson, some writing 
> suggests--- violating this ideal will never happen. A screaming would 
> be heard across his brow.
> Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, 
> spreadsheets and presentations.
> Logo for Google Docs <https://docs.google.com/>
>
>
> -- 
> Mark Kohut (& Associates)
> 646-519-1956
>
> Redburn Press
> P.O. Box 8452
> Pittsburgh, Pa. 15220
> 412-937-0906
> 646-519-1956
>
> -- Mark Kohut (& Associates)646-519-1956Redburn PressP.O. Box 
> 8452Pittsburgh, Pa. 15220412-937-0906646-519-1956
> -- Mark Kohut (& Associates)646-519-1956Redburn PressP.O. Box 
> 8452Pittsburgh, Pa. 15220412-937-0906646-519-1956

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