Thomas Pynchon (1937-, at left, in his youth, from Trashotron.com) may be the most famous publicity-averse writer in the world, matched perhaps only by J.D. Salinger (1919-). But while Salinger's strange, hermetic bubble has been pierced several times, by writer Joyce Maynard in her tell-all 1972 Time article and subsequent 1999 memoir, and by his daughter Margaret's illuminating, corrective 1999 account, and while Salinger hasn't published (as far as anyone knows) a book or any short fiction since 1965 (nor given an interview since 1974), Pynchon's private life since his mid-1960s seclusion remains mostly a mystery for the reading public, his Cornell friend Jules Siegel's Playboy article notwithstanding, but he has published several acclaimed novels since then, including one of the greatest novels in the English language, Gravity's Rainbow (1973), as well as the widely panned Vineland (1990) and Mason & Dixon (1997). Because of the absence of any information or publicity about Pynchon and the rarity of publications, announcements of a new book have tended to stir up a hullabaloo, send fans and the media into overdrive.So it is with his new novel: this past Wednesday on Slate, Troy Patterson created a hubbub by writing about a synopsis of a 992-page work of fiction, titled Untitled Pynchon Novel, that appeared on Amazon.com's Website. Literary bloggers and the media had already begun spreading the news about the book last month. The Amazon synopsis not only bore all the hallmarks of Pynchon's style, but carried his byline as well. Real, or a hoax? Patterson initially wrote that the publicity chief of the book's publisher Penguin "disavow[ed]" all knowledge of the writeup's authorship, and added that Amazon.com hadn't sorted out what its response would be and that, unsurprisingly, Pynchon wasn't returning Patterson's phone call. The next day, however, Patterson posted a clarification. The blurb was Pynchon's handiwork after all, according to Penguin, which, Patterson corrected, did not disclaim the post. What a great bit of PR! The novel is entitled Against the Day, and spans the period between the Chicago Exposition of 1893 and the end of the First World War. One of its central characters may or may not be based on the mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya; the former German culture minister, Michael Naumann, alleged he'd assisted Pynchon in conducting research on her. Did Pynchon just call him up? When people work with Pynchon, do they sign non-disclosure and non-photography agreements? Penguin supposedly will be publishing the new novel in December of this year. I hope it's more Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49 than Vineland. (I haven't read Mason & Dixon...there are only so many hours in the day....)
As you can imagine I am very very *VERY* excited by this! I often have a copy of "Rainbow" close to hand when I'm writing, in the hopes that some of its genius will float down onto the page by osmosis:) M also adores "V".
ReplyDeleteReggie, I am also now looking forward to it. I'm not sure when I'll get an opportunity to read it, though. 992 pages...I mean, whoa! I have finished all of Bolaño and most of the Marías books that are translated, as well as Toibin's The Master, Babbitt, Claudia Rankine's most recent collection of poems, and am now going to tackle your boy M.W. Moore, which ought to be a quick read. I hope.
ReplyDeleteOh, you read The Master? What did you think of it? I didn't think it stylistically (prosaically?--can I use the word that way?) as adept as The Line of Beauty, but I found it incomparably more affecting and emotionally textured. So I was disappointed when Hollingshurst won the Booker over Toibin. But perhaps you have a different opinion..?
ReplyDeleteKai in NYC
Kai, I found the Hollinghurst book more ambitious in its plot and thematics, and understand why it beat out Toibín's book, which I agree was more emotionally textured and affecting, if a bit slow at points. Hollinghurst's book was very much in his usual vein, though his attempts to work through a contemporary understanding of aestheticism were especially commendable, even if he didn't fully pull it off. One question I had at the end was what did "beauty," particularly the kind of highly aestheticized, depoliticized beauty Hollinghurst kept writing about--that he captured in his style (a brilliant touch) really constitute and mean for Nick, particularly in an era in which the glorification of neoliberal, global capitalism, and the utter commodification of artistic practices and production, were so central (esp. during late Thatcherism)? Toibín's book achieved what it set out to do, which was to mirror James's style closely without becoming mimicry, and to enter into the fortress of his consciousness without falling pray to easily ventriloquism or sentimentality. I tend to like some poetic sparks, and Hollinghurst's book had more, plus his customary technical and content choices usually win me over. But I also kept thinking at times, he's really shooting far (which I think is one of the things every true artist has to and should do, more frequently than not) and not always hitting the mark....
ReplyDeleteI had the same question. The failure of the protagonist's inner life--really, he was excrutiatingly shallow--to reflect in some way the heady aestheticisizing of the book struck me as wierd or seriously off-key at best. I usually enjoy Hollingshurst a great deal, mostly inspite of myself, since I generally find his protagonists to be nitwits and tedious. Toibin's sensibility, as it's come through in his novels, has won me over in a big way. Guess, I'm just inclined to be "Team Toibin." (Sometimes I wish I could wed certain writer's technical facility to other writer's superior--or more profound--grasp of the human condition. I've wished Alice Walker were capable of Toni Morrison's prose, for example.)
ReplyDeleteKai in NYC
But Kai, I think part of the issue was that he was supposed to be shallow; extremely shallow and very attracted to the surface of things, a kind of hyper-Wildean/Paterian, which is why the final political reckoning carried more weight. In this book Hollinghurst appeared to find a theme befitting his longtime interests. Not all writers need or can be stylistically flashy, and sometimes the subject matter demands that they not be, but Toibín's prose became turgid at points, which I guess is in keeping with the content, though it didn't always make for enjoyable reading.
ReplyDeleteBTW, did you ever receive the response about the books you'd asked me about? Was it just not of use to you? I didn't hear back either way.
I apologize! Your suggestions were very useful! I thought I'd replied and thanked you; sorry for taking so long to do so.
ReplyDeleteIt's not only a matter of being stylistically flashy: it's also a matter of simply having sufficent command of the language to translate a personal vision into successful prose. I've had the clear impression with certain writers that I've admired that their ambition, intelligence, political and spiritual engagement outstripped to a greater or lesser degree their ability as writers per se. Alice Walker is one; Barbara Kingsolver is another. But things are what they are.
In the case of The Line of Beauty, the relentless superficiality of the protagonist actually blunted the impact of the reckoning at the end of the book for me. Surely you agree it's easier to care deeply about a character who himself has some depths (and likewise difficult to care much about the shallow)?
Kai in NYC