In a message dated 98-03-22 17:07:45 EST, you write: > I saw that article and was extremely saddened by it. Not as a scholar > denied primary material (well, maybe a little bit of that, if I dared > label myself a scholar), but by the ghoulish thoughts such news inevitably > call come to mind. I want to read those letters. But at this moment, > I don't want to read them THAT badly. Not badly enough to satisfy the > Morgan's "after-death" rule. > > I'd rather both authors lived to see 100 than to satisfy my desire to > visit the library and read. > > --tim > I have to admit I understand the feelings. I want to read the letters. I want Pynchon's privacy maintained. I appreciate the library for witholding them at least until he's dead. I really first encountered this issue when I started really studying James Joyce. Many of his letters had been published before his death, but selectively, by Richard Ellmann. After Joyce's death Ellmann published All the letters--even the erotica James wrote to Nora during their early periods of separation. Much of the content of the letters was pretty embarrassing for the family. I remember thinking as I was reading some of it, "Did I **really** need to know that?" I decided I didn't. The hell with scholarship. I don't need most of Joyce's letters to understand the content of his fiction, and his is probably more consciously autobiographical than that of most authors. I don't see how reading Pynchon's letters will lend insight into _Mason and Dixon_, and if it helps us understand other works like _V_ or _Vineland_, great, but I think all we'll really discover is where he got some of his ideas from. I'd come down on the side of never seeing the letters at all. Jim