Watts and its publication - the importance of relations

[John Bailey]

I've been wondering about Pynchon's non-fiction too, especially the
Luddite and Sloth essays in the NYT book review.I just can't imagine a
new piece of non-fiction by Thomas Pynchon appearing in a newspaper or
magazine today. It's unfathomable. Those two essays came out when he
had no book to spruik, either. At least Watts makes sense in the great
way Matthew has posited here, as the nascent expression of a growing
political consciousness. But Luddite and Sloth are real outliers. And
he didn't refrained from returning to the form, unless we count that
weird Daily Show thing I'd forgotten about.

On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 2:39 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Always great detail,Matthew.
>
> I have sortaalways seen this,once I knew about Kirkpatrick
> Sales position as a possible favor to hiM. Maybe K and Faith
> told him it would help give his (latest)fiction more attention. I'm sure enoough
> that his publisher would have liked it. They always do. They do believe such
> non-fic appearances do help sales. They build a credibility,
> prestigious 'platform'
> as you rightly allude to as today's word.
>
> Maybe, as he said re Lot 49,he sorta needed the money?--would be
> waiting awhile  for any Lot 49 monies and When did he get any GR advance,do
> you know?
>
> My reasoning,TRP overwhelmingly wanted to ONLY(?) (virtually) write fiction.
> his few non-fic pieces are for certain almost-personal reasons....
>
> Non-fic makes one a public person, so to speak (sorta)---with non-ambiguous
> opinions etc.......he doesn't want much of this....
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 7:41 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>      Does anyone know if it has been noted somewhere, that is in the
>> research and whatnot, that when Pynchon wrote his Watts piece it was
>> published in the New York Times Magazine where Kirk Sale was working
>> as Editor at the time? It was published on June 12, on the tail of a
>> month of reviews of his then most recent novel, CL49.
>>
>>     It would be intersting to know if this just happened as such or if
>> there was some more calculated release.
>>
>>   We know that CL49 appears first in Esquire Dec. 1965 and then the
>> fragment "The Shrink Flips" in Cavalier in March, only to be published
>> as a book ("short story with glandular problems") a few months later.
>>
>> But what about the Journey? We know it looks back to the events in LA
>> in Aug 1965, but it starts by mentioning the murder of Leonard
>> Deadwyler on May 7th 1966. This is while reviews are coming out about
>> CL49. (Richard Poirier gave a positive one on May 1 in the NYT.)
>>
>>   I don't see it as very calculating in terms of sales. In fact, it
>> strikes me more as something from one who has come of age in terms of
>> a critical regard toward society and has decided to express that
>> concern in an essay that, given his contacts and platform (that's the
>> word they use now), was easily and rapidly published.
>>
>>    What's more, it's interesting to me that so many of what appear to
>> be significant events in Pynchon's social and political development
>> were in relation to Kirk Sale. First the student protests at Cornell
>> in '58, then his Journey essay in '66, and finally signing the
>> anti-war letter that Sale also signed. These constitute public
>> expressions of a growing political consciousness. Is it not an
>> argument for the importance of the relation of subjects in a given
>> field?
>>
>> ciao
>> mc otis
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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