Odds of another Pynchon novel

Mark Kohut mark.kohut at gmail.com
Wed Jun 17 05:49:04 CDT 2015


I think it very unlikely Pychon has any unpublished works. I think it
quite likely he may have parts of
works.

Salinger began leaving his stash of novels when he stopped publishing.
In the sixties. In fact this month, this issue of the New Yorker 50
years ago
held his last published story,  Hapworth 16, 1924. (I rode streetcars
to where I was told I could buy that unknown to me mag. It was in the
return room already by the time I learned and got there.)

Atwood publicly gave a manuscript to the future, i.e. has written a
novel which will not be published by her say-so until XXXX. We can
look it up.
That was my only reason for bringing THAT up.

Twain gave his autobiography, 3 vols., to the 100 year old future.
Which is now the past.  E.M Forster had Maurice held until after his
death. I am sure there are more examples.

Yes, we know almost nothing about Pynchon's working habits and working
attempts. That unscientific and highly fallible sense of
circumstantial evidence
leads me to think he worked on at least three books at once since GR.
We know what they were. The last of those was published in 2006. Since
then he has written
two others both now published. I think that writing and living are
joined with him, so I think he is writing something new. Always.
Until.

Just my twopenny haughtiness.

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 6:19 AM, Jamie McKittrick <jamiemckit at gmail.com> wrote:
> Slow to return to my line of questioning, sorry. Happy to see the sparks
> flying about though. My reasoning for the question was thus:
>
> Pynchon is alive. The curious cat in me wants to know if he has another
> novel or two that he is working on. We currently have no way on earth of
> knowing.
>
> Pynchon is also approaching the grave. Though he may still have thirty-odd
> years left in him - and a many happy day I wish him - the fact is that he
> will not be around forever.
>
> Drawing crass parallels: Salinger - another so-called reclusive author -
> after his passing, left a stash of novels to be published posthumously. Does
> Pynchon have any unpublished works? Very likely. Are any of these
> unpublished works novels? It's possible. Is he working on something at the
> moment? Almost certainly.
>
> The Atwood parallel is moot. We can go to one of her public talks, we can
> write to her agent, we can send her a fan letter and ask "Are you working on
> another book, Margaret?" and she will say "Oh, I've got a little something
> up my sleeve." Not so with Pynchon. I asked first whether he had any other
> books coming up, and so it's only natural curiosity leading me to natural
> conclusions: what happens when the big P shuffles off this mortal rizla?
>
> -J
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 4:19 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> In GR this need 4 Control is always about Tech's needs. Please weigh in,
>> site master!
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, June 16, 2015, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Scientific analysis is porn in GR because it strips away the "mysterious
>>> and fecund" as sacred truths embodied by the Virgin, and replaces that magic
>>> with a mathematical equation. GR's Arch-Villian attempts to reduce Life's
>>> complexity (mystery and existential awe), our natural experience of the
>>> Spiritual, to a determinantable (dead) End to All Mystery.  In this regard,
>>> Pynchon is very religious/spiritual in his deeper works.
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, June 16, 2015, Jerome Park <jeromepark3141 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> But it is Adams's Education, and, satirically, Stencil's quest or search
>>>> for meaning, for identity and causality, for what, for Adams, is lost and
>>>> can't be recovered, the Force that he describes in the famous chapter on the
>>>> Virgin, that is formative. Not so White Godless or Frazer...Eliade etc. The
>>>> Virgin force, mysterious and fecund has degenerated into the inanimate.
>>>>
>>>> It's Christmas Eve, but the Virgin will not deliver. Still, the force of
>>>> Mother is all around, yet only the Father, in fragments is known. But She
>>>> is. GR may be read as a response to Pig and Profane and the whole sick
>>>> crew's abortion.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 11:18 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It goes much deeper than Adams. The Virgin isn't owned by Adams. His is
>>>>> but one framing.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, June 15, 2015, Jerome Park <jeromepark3141 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They are tools that can be discarded. But what are the forces that use
>>>>>> them? Brock has his funding cut, not by anything mysterious,  insidious, or
>>>>>> monstrous, but by  government agency. Windust is a tool of government agency
>>>>>> and its cumbersome and often ineffectual ventures with multinational
>>>>>> business and agency.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In contrast, in GR, the monstrous and insidious forces are invisible
>>>>>> and mysterious, beyond the comprehension of, let alone, the reach of any
>>>>>> coordinated counter cultural resistance.  The force is, for lack of a better
>>>>>> term, as Dwight Eddins so artfully and elequantly describes it, a Gnostic
>>>>>> Force. This force is born from Pynchon's readings of Adams and is the
>>>>>> driving force or theme that makes V. a masterpiece first novel.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 7:46 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
>>>>>> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Brock? Windust? Not forces invisible, mysterious, insidious,
>>>>>>> monstrous. Just here and now. So What? "
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Whatever else they may be, Vond and Windust are also tools of "forces
>>>>>>> invisible, mysterious, insidious, monstrous." Tools which can be discarded
>>>>>>> at any time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l



More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list