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Dear
Mr. Pynchon,
I'd rather
not call you Mr. Pynchon, but I certainly don't want to call
you Tom. The only Tom I know is a dreadful twit with a faux-British
accent and twee mannerisms. I thought that, for the duration
of this open letter, I'd call you Pynchy, a sort of homage
to your appearance on The Simpsons. As you probably
know, Homer had a pet lobster in one episode that he named
Pinchy. Sometimes, when Homer would gaze at Pinchy, the lobster
would take on traditional anthropomorphic cartoon proportions—he
would get big gooey pupils, for example. Pinchy came to a
bad end, but, in the spirit of your dense, reference-laden
prose, Pynchy will also refer to David Foster Wallace's essay,
"Consider the Lobster," from the eponymous book. Many lobsters
were consumed during the course of that essay, but down the
line, some lobsters were saved. I know of at least two people
who no longer eat lobster as a direct result of that essay.
If I could throw another reference in there I surely would.
I first
met you when I was a kid. At the time I didn't think I was
a kid, but I was. I was 16, and I'd seen it all. (I really
had! I saw Blondie play at CBGBs—could there be anything
more to life?) One hot summer afternoon I was down in my friend's
basement. We were drinking iced coffee made from Folgers Instant,
sweetened with Sweet & Low stolen from Butchies Donuts. Barbara
and I liked to drink, but we usually didn't start drinking
our rum and cokes or vodka and OJs until 5 P.M. It was only
3 P.M., and we were just shaking off the previous night's
hangovers. Barbara's mother had a lot of clothes in her basement
from the 50's and 60's, and I was trying on tight dresses
and stilettos when I saw a box in the corner marked "books."
 "Can
I look through those?"
"Sure,
knock yourself out."
Barbara
really said things like that—things like "knock yourself
out" and also "don't beat around the bush" while slapping
the area around her mons veneris.
"Those
are Richie's from college, there won't be anything good in
there."
Barbara
and I liked to trade Stephen King and V.C. Andrews novels,
so our idea of "good" was highly subjective. In the box was
a paperback called The Crying of Lot 49 that had a
very groovy illustration. I took it for the cover alone. Apparently,
you can judge a book by its cover. I started reading it when
I got home, and I loved it so much I took it out with me later,
when we went to the Tysens Lounge and made old men buy us
drinks.
You pretty
much changed everything for me, Pynchy. I went back to Stephen
King for a few more books, but all that good and evil business
seemed so simplistic compared to conspiracy and paranoia.
Anyone in Lot 49 could be good or evil, but they were
more likely something more arcane. I was completely entranced
by Oedipa Maas and the web of intrigue she's drawn into upon
becoming the executrix of her ex-boyfriend's estate. And apparently
I wasn't the only one—after I read the book I started
to notice book-related graffiti everywhere. Even on the subway,
there were drawings of the Trystero muted post horn.
Two years
later, I was in college and working as a messenger. I wasn't
a bike messenger, but a more genteel "walker." For any delivery
over ten blocks, the service paid for me to take the subway.
I had time to read, even if I didn't have time for homework.
My next book of yours was V., of which I have specific
memories reading on the N train platform at 59th Street, transferring
from the 6 on my way to work on E. 40th street from Hunter
College. I was reading about subterranean alligator hunting
and a rat named Veronica when an adorable rodent scurried
along the platform, no doubt on her way to meet Benny Profane
(from the book, not the porn actor).
And here,
Pynchy, is where things start to get hazy. I loved V., but
I didn't get V. Unlike Lot 49, which is short
and less dense, V. is full of references and characters
and subplots, mystery, allegory—I picked up on all your
urban legend stuff, but I was missing the gestalt of the book.
It was a 1,000 piece puzzle. I liked looking at all the little
pieces and never put the thing together. I'd have a hard time
describing the book now if pressed, other than Benny Profane
and Herbert Stencil representing some sort of duality, their
storylines meeting at the end of the book to make a V shape,
and the fact that V. is a mysterious female who may or may
not exist. And there were alligators, rats, and plastic surgery.
If these books were women, Lot 49 would be Tina Fey,
and V. would be that Fellini segment from Boccaccio
'70, where a giant Anita Ekberg comes down off a milk
billboard and terrorizes a man.
 A
month after I finished V. , I was rummaging through
my brother's room, looking for something to read. I'd just
been on a "classics of Russian literature" kick, so I wanted
something big but modern. Lo! There was a mass-market size
copy of Gravity's Rainbow, perfect for carting around
with packages.
"You'll
never finish it," proclaimed my brother. "But go ahead and
try."
I started
it during my first year of college. I think I finished it
right around the time of Kurt Cobain's death, which was long
after I got my Master's degree. Perhaps my ridiculously high
GPA was a direct result of doing schoolwork in order to avoid
reading Gravity's Rainbow.
I still
fondly remember certain scenes, like the mushroom drying.
I remember making up tunes to the goofy songs. I remember
looking out the window a lot as I read GR on many bus
trips.
But before
I finished Gravity's Rainbow, you released Vineland.
I bought it and finished it the week it was released.
"Phew!"
I thought. "Maybe I'm just a better reader than I was a few
years back."
Uh, no.
It still
took me a few more years to finish GR. Vineland
was the EasyReader Pynchon. It was dense and had a lot of
characters, but it was not as dense, and it did not have as
many characters. It was much more obviously funny, and since
it was contemporary and took place in a California town populated
with leftists, these characters were more like people I actually
knew. And the Star Trek stuff was hilarious.
What
time is it now? April 2007? I'm barely 100 pages into Mason
and Dixon, which I started in 1999. I know I like this
book—there are talking animals! But there's just something
about the way you write…
Pynchy,
don't take this personally, but you write in a style that,
despite its experimental structure, is maybe too realistic.
Life doesn't follow a linear plot, one never knows where things
are going, and things happen every day that don't seem to
have any real meaning. There are things that add texture,
but don't seem to add anything to the overall narrative—like
when the phone rings and you know who it is without caller
ID, or when you meet a talking dog, or when you wake up with
mysterious marks on your arms. There are many days when I
don't feel like getting out of bed, just like there are many
days I don't feel the need to pick up Mason & Dixon.
It's not that the story is boring; it's more like, "Oh, I
don't need to read it today. It, and I, will still be there
tomorrow."
Or so
I'm told, Pynchy. But if I'm not here tomorrow, perhaps when
I'm a ghost like Walter Rathenau in Gravity's Rainbow,
I'll be able to see the whole shape.
Or maybe
I should just sit back, relax, and enjoy the anthropomorphic
animals.
xxx,
:dotty:
(April
2007)
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