Pynchon's project

[matthew cissell]

Many or most of you know about the Pynchon letters in the Pierpont Morgan
Library, and have probably heard about the "four novels in progress" that
TP mentions in '64.

Poking around on the web I came across the Inherent Vice wiki and this:
 In April 1964, Pynchon wrote to his agent, Candida Donadio, that he was
facing a creative crisis, with four novels in progress, and that "If they
come out on paper anything like they are inside my head then it will be the
literary event of the millennium."[9]
<http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Thomas_Pynchon#cite_note-9>
 In December 1965, Pynchon politely turned down an offer to teach
literature at Bennington College, writing that he had resolved, two or
three years earlier, to write three novels at once.[10]
<http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Thomas_Pynchon#cite_note-10>Pynchon
called the decision "a moment of temporary insanity," but noted that he was
"too stubborn to let any of them go, let alone all of them."

Pynchon's second novel, *The Crying of Lot 49
<http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/>,* was published a few months later in
1966. Whether it was one of the three or four novels Pynchon had in
progress is unknown, but in a 1965 letter to Donadio, Pynchon had written
that he was in the middle of writing a book that he called a "potboiler."
When the book grew to 155 pages, he called it, "a short story, but with
gland trouble," and hoped that Donadio "can unload it on some poor sucker."
This would suggest that *Crying of Lot 49* was *not* one of the four novels
Pynchon was writing as of 1964, but no answer is certain.

Now, we don't know with full certainty (TP hasn't said anythin), but can we
really accept that the quoted parts of the letters 'suggest' that CL49 was
NOT one of the novels? In fact, doesn't the contrary seem more likely? What
do the rest of you think?


ciao

mc
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