Re: publishing news
Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Mon, 16 Mar 1998 22:58:44 -0800
Tim O'Connor wrote:
> Maynard's book is still scheduled for the winter of 1999, though many
> observers doubt that she will be quoting from his letters to her, and will
> therefore be less likely to find herself blocked by an adverse court ruling.
Interesting post, tim. In light of my previous comments about the Pynchon
letters I think I'll just post it because it's pretty apropos to your post.
Malcolm
----------------------
http://www.salonmagazine.com/media/1998/03/10media.html
The crying over Lot 49
______________of Thomas Pynchon's letters
BY MAKING HER
COLLECTION OF THE
RECLUSIVE
AUTHOR'S
CORRESPONDENCE
PUBLIC, AN AGENT
HAS BECOME THE
LINDA TRIPP OF THE
LITERARY WORLD.
- - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BY DWIGHT GARNER| The story of Thomas
Pynchon's initial disappearance has been told so
often that it has passed into legend. The year was
1963; the place was Mexico City. Time magazine
dispatched a photographer to bring back an image of
the 26-year-old author of a promising first novel
called "V." The problem was, Pynchon didn't want
his picture snapped -- he reportedly felt his buck
teeth made him look like Bugs Bunny. So he
climbed aboard a bus and vanished into the hills,
where his furtive manner and wildly overgrown
mustache led the locals to dub him "Pancho Villa."
One story that's never been told -- until last week,
anyway -- is how Pynchon was courted (and nearly
seduced) by another national glossy, Esquire, during
the late '60s or early '70s. The magazine needed a
film critic; Pynchon thought he might be the man for
the job. "I can be crisp, succinct, iconoclastic,
noncoterie, nonprogrammatic ... also curmudgeonly,
insulting, bigoted, psychotic and nitpicking," he
wrote in a letter to his agent. "A boy scout's decade
of virtues." Pynchon and Ebert! No one really
knows why Esquire didn't give Pynchon the thumbs
up, but you can bet that they're still kicking
themselves about it. ("The door is always open,"
Esquire's new editor, David Granger, told Salon last
week. "We already have a very fine film critic in
David Thomson, but we're always looking for great
writers. And Thomas Pynchon can certainly write.")
The Pynchon-Esquire connection is just one of the
revelations contained in a series of letters, more than
120 in all, that the famously reclusive author wrote
to his former agent, Candida Donadio, between
1963 and 1982. The content of those letters became
public last week, almost certainly against Pynchon's
will, when the New York Times published a wide
selection of excerpts from them. They depict a
young author veering -- as young authors are wont
to do -- between braggadocio and deep uncertainty.
"If they come out on paper anything like they are
inside my head," Pynchon writes about four
novels-in-progress in a 1964 letter, "then it will be
the literary event of the millennium." At other
moments, according to the Times, Pynchon
wondered whether he should give up writing and
seek another avenue of expression.
The letters also display flashes of Pynchon's
baroque wit. When "Who's Who" asked him to
supply a biographical note, the Times writes,
Pynchon debated replying that his parents were
named Irving Pynchon and Guadalupe Ibarguengotia
and that he was "named Exotic Dancers Man of the
Year in 1957" and "regional coordinator for the
March of Edsel Owners on Washington (MEOW) in
1961." And they certainly evidence Pynchon's
obsession with secrecy: When word arrived that
writer Dick Schaap was working on a piece about
him, Pynchon observed that the story would almost
certainly be riddled with "lies, calumnies and
all-around knavish disregard for my privacy." When
it did appear, Schaap's piece made Pynchon feel
"sick, almost homicidal."
If Schaap's intrusions drove Pynchon to homicidal
distraction, how is the Oz of American letters coping
with the publication of these revealing new letters?
He's not saying, of course. But the author's lawyer,
Jeremy Nussbaum, told Salon that Pynchon is "very
concerned and quite distressed."
Last week's Times piece sent a series of shock
waves through the publishing and academic worlds.
The first reason for this was simple: Biographical
information about Pynchon is remarkably scarce,
and these letters are likely to be a treasure trove for
scholars. The other reason, however, was
astonishment at the level of betrayal involved in the
letters ever becoming public at all. Pynchon's
correspondence surfaced after his former agent (and
former friend) Donadio sold them in 1984, for
$45,000, to a collector named Carter Burden. After
Burden's death two years ago, his family donated his
expansive literary collection -- including Pynchon's
letters -- to New York's Pierpont Morgan Library.
The library made them available to the Times, and
plans to allow scholars access to them beginning this
fall.
What's shocking to publishing insiders is that an
agent would betray a writer's confidence by selling
his or her letters to a third party. "I was stunned
when I heard this," said one well-known New York
literary agent, who asked to remain anonymous.
"I've never heard of an agent doing something like
this, particularly with the letters of a living writer.
Every agent I know has priceless letters like these
from their authors, and they would never dream of
selling them."
One likely scenario is that the now-elderly Donadio,
a well-known figure in the publishing world whose
clients have included Robert Stone, simply needed
the money. Another, however, is that she wished to
extract a measure of revenge on Pynchon. Indeed,
one of his final 1984 letters to her reads, "As of this
date, you are no longer authorized to represent me
or my work." It is signed, "Cordially, Thomas
Pynchon." Regardless of her motives, Donadio has
quickly become the Linda Tripp of the publishing
set, guilty of very bad manners if not apparent
illegality.
As it happens, the Pynchon-Donadio letters aren't
the first time that Pynchon's correspondence -- and
in some cases, his alleged correspondence -- has
sparked controversy. According to John M. Krafft, a
Pynchon scholar who edits a newsletter called
Pynchon Notes, there are already some of the
author's bootlegged letters on the market. In 1990, a
tiny press called Blown Litter published a selection
of letters Pynchon had written to one of his editors,
Corlies M. Smith. (The letters were stolen from
Smith's files.) The book was titled "Of a Fond
Ghoul," and according to Krafft, only 50 copies
were printed.
Like many other Pynchon scholars, who are
deferential to their idol, Krafft hasn't sought out a
copy of "Of a Fond Ghoul" -- primarily, he says,
because Pynchon wouldn't want him to. "I won't
say I'm not curious about them," Krafft says. "But I
respect Pynchon's desire for privacy. My interest is
primarily in the material that Pynchon wants his
readers to see."
More mysterious, to Pynchon scholars at any rate,
are a bushel of letters sent in the mid-1980s to the
Anderson Valley Advertiser, a small, hell-raising
Northern California newspaper, by a woman named
Wanda Tinasky. These cranky and wildly cerebral
letters are believed by many to be Pynchon's own
work. (He was almost certainly living in Northern
California at the time, laboring on his 1990 novel
"Vineland.") According to Scott McLemee's 1995
piece about the Tinasky letters in Lingua Franca, it
wasn't until a selection of these letters was about to
go to press that Pynchon, through his agent, finally
denied authorship.
Many in the Pynchon community, however,
continue to believe that the Tinasky letters do indeed
bear Pynchon's idiosyncratic stamp. Some of them,
in fact, are hoping that the release of the
Pynchon-Donadio letters will finally confirm their
hunch. Among these scholars is a secretive female
writer who works under the nom de plume TR
Factor; she edited a 1995 volume titled "The Letters
of Wanda Tinasky" (Vers Libre Press). "Do I think
the new Pynchon letters will have any impact on the
Tinasky letters? Absolutely!" Factor told Salon via
e-mail.
After scanning the excerpts in the Times, Factor is
quick to single out similarities between the Tinasky
missives and the letters to Donadio. "Wanda was an
avid moviegoer," Factor notes, referring to
Pynchon's dreams of writing film criticism for
Esquire. Factor was also intrigued to learn, in the
new Pynchon letters, that Pynchon had once sought
a pre-publication blurb from Saul Bellow. According
to the Times, Bellow's response was succinct: "Read
it? Sure. Tout it? I doubt it." "That may explain,"
Factor says, "Wanda's referring to Bellow as 'that
old Chicago hebe who got the Nobel Prize for
literature.'"
While these bits may not be particularly persuasive,
Factor hopes that a review of the full texts of
Pynchon's letters will prove the issue beyond doubt.
To this end, Factor hopes to engage the services of
Vassar Professor Donald Foster, the noted literary
attributionist who outed Joe Klein as the author of
"Primary Colors."
Whether or not Factor and other Pynchon fans will
have the chance to examine the new letters directly
remains in some doubt. According to the Morgan
Library's communications director, Glory Jones -- a
Pynchonian name if there ever was one -- scholars
will be able to view the letters only after submitting a
written request along with a letter of
recommendation, and only under the watchful eyes
of two librarians.
Nussbaum, Pynchon's lawyer, says he plans to meet
with representatives of the library this week to see if
the letters can be kept private. "There is a copyright
issue here," Nussbaum said. "These letters cannot
be reproduced or displayed." According to
Nussbaum, Pynchon was aware that the Times was
preparing to publish selections from letters. "Mr.
Pynchon is a believer in the First Amendment," he
said, "and he would not have tried to enjoin the
Times from publishing those excerpts. What the
Times did was, legally, within the bounds of fair
use. What we're dealing with now is what's going to
happen over the long haul."
Many Pynchon scholars find themselves on the
fence about the whole Pynchon-Donadio affair. "I'd
be lying if I said I wasn't interested in these
letters,"
says Clifford Mead, the author of "Thomas
Pynchon: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary
Material" (Dalkey Archive), which is regarded as the
definitive Pynchon bibliography. "But I do respect
his privacy, and I have no interest in being one of
those scholars who treat him the way paparazzi treat
other celebrities." Adds another Pynchon expert,
Stephen Tomaske: "From everything I know about
Thomas Pynchon, he seems like a nice guy,
someone with above-average decency. Can't we just
leave him alone?"
SALON | March 10, 1998