Subject: "Literary World's Deliberate Enigma" - Thomas Pynchon - CNN story
Susan_Baskett@mail.pc2k.com
Date: Fri Jun 06 1997 - 07:08:39 GMT
***I don't know if you guys have read this yet but it was on the internet
today (CNN News). Here it is if you're interested. . . susan.
Where's Thomas Pynchon?
CNN tracks down literary world's deliberate enigma
June 5, 1997
Web posted at: 10:35 p.m. EDT (0235 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Thomas Pynchon is an enigma shrouded in a mystery veiled in
anonymity.
Among America's most significant writers, Pynchon's five novels have been
critical and sales successes. His latest, "Mason & Dixon" -- thick with words
and
complexity -- sits on the best-seller lists of The New York Times and Los
Angeles Times. Its mere publication was considered a literary event.
Yet, you won't see Pynchon hawking his wares on Oprah's book club. You won't
find him signing his name for fans down at the corner bookstore.
He so shuns publicity that he doesn't allow his likeness to be used on book
jackets. All known photographs of the man date to the early 1950s.
Until Nancy Jo Sales of New York Magazine tracked him down last year, no
reporter had interviewed him in four decades.
When a CNN camera crew caught up with Pynchon in Manhattan recently, he phoned
back to strongly request that he not be pointed out to viewers in any
videotape (a request which, after much debate, CNN opted to honor). "Let me
be unambiguous," he said. "I prefer not to be photographed."
Pynchon's oh-so-low profile has earned him the sobriquet as the Greta Garbo of
American letters. Some of his fans wonder if he really exists or might
really
be several people writing under a pseudonym. He's a popular topic in
cyberspace and, until the arrest of Theodore Kaczynski, was even supposed by
some
to be the elusive Unabomber.
But there are some indications that the 60-something Pynchon may be
cultivating anonymity for his own playful purposes -- and to set himself
apart.
Clearly, the more obscure he makes himself, the bigger the buzz becomes. "I
think the mystery helps a lot," says Pynchon devotee Ed Conklin.
"Because nobody knows who he is, so people talk about who he might be."
Pynchon himself rejects any characterizations of him as a recluse,
telling CNN that "my belief is that recluse is a code word generated by
journalists ... meaning, 'doesn't like to talk to reporters.'"
He has proven himself willing to step out of the shadows from time to time --
but on his own terms.
When actor John Larroquette started making references to Pynchon on his TV
sitcom, the writer -- through his agent, of course -- contacted the show to
offer the
suggestions and corrections. "In a very oblique way, Thomas Pynchon helped
rewrite that script," Larroquette says. And in the early 1980s, the Anderson
Valley
Advertiser, a small newspaper in Northern California, began getting letters
from a writer called Wanda Tinasky, taking some hard swipes at powerful
literary figures --
Alice Walker and critic John Leonard among them. Now it is widely believed by
literary scholars that Pynchon was Wanda Tinasky. And those letters have been
collected in book form.
Mystery turns out to be convention
Pynchon's enigmatic reputation has created an aura of mystery about him. But
the truth turns out to be not quite so exotic, according to Sales. He leads a
somewhat
conventional life in New York City. "He shops at neighborhood stores. He
lunches with other writers. He spends weekends in the countryside with his
family," she says.
Indeed, he is so conventional that you might not know him if you saw him.
While CNN agreed not to isolate him and identify him specifically, he does
happen to be
among the people you will see in street scenes in the movie accompanying this
story.
Correspondent Charles Feldman contributed to this report.
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