Watts and its publication - the importance of relations

[John Bailey]

Just re-read the 1984 intro and the intro to Stone Junction. In
retrospect they (and the other non-fic) really do maintain common
threads that both show up in his later writing and are suggestive of
Pynchon's bio and personality. In the SJ intro he bangs on and on
about privacy and surveillance in the modern age and the strategy of
constantly being on the move (and Pynchon himself had been very
peripatetic, moving around the US a lot according to Phyllis Gebauer).
And in the same work and the 1984 intro there is a really intense
interest in the emerging internet, and in most of his non-fiction
there is an equally keen eye maintained on new technology. All
suggests that Bleeding Edge is either something he was thinking about
for a long time or perhaps something he banged out quickly because it
was bringing together all of his usual interests.

On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 1:38 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's true, wasn't thinking about that so much.
>
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 1:04 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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> 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
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l