Watts and its publication - the importance of relations

[Monte Davis]

Don't forget the 1984 introduction

On Friday, October 30, 2015, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> <javascript:;>> 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
> <javascript:;>> 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
> > -
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> -
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