Reclusive Thomas Pynchon has a new novel. And it’s all very hush-hush, says matt ford |
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These are heady days for that most delirious of literary cults, the Pynchonomanes. Tomorrow, their deity, Thomas Pynchon, publishes his first novel for ten years, Against the Day.
Hectares of cyberspace have been devoted to speculation as to its contents. Desperate addicts have ventured yet more desperate stratagems to try to catch sight of the manuscript, and of its reclusive author – who, except to his family, intimates and trusted publishers, has remained invisible for almost 40 years, so much so that at one stage he was rumoured to be the Unabomber.
He is said to live in a brownstone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; he's said to be a regular guy. But he's given no interviews and has run things the Trappist way since his first success with V in 1963. Yes, he once worked as a technical writer with Boeing in Seattle. Yes, there's a photograph of him
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| Pynchon’s only two public appearances have been guest spots on The Simpsons - both times, he was drawn with a bag on his head |
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from 1957. Otherwise, nothing.
And nothing - until publication day - is what Pynchon wants to be seen from his book. He doesn't want pirated copies being auctioned for astronomical sums on eBay; he doesn't want filched material on the blogosphere. Pynchonomanes will just have to wait until tomorrow to begin to decode the allusions and concordances they hope to discover in Against the Day, and share their findings on arcane websites and mailing lists such as Pynchon-L, www.waste.org/pynchon-l.
So Pynchon's publishers, eager to hang on to a strongly-selling, prestigious author, have tightly controlled the release of review copies. Just 15 are on the loose in London. So far, the tight security has succeeded: not one review copy has appeared on the black market. However, one or two US publications have incited the author's fury by breaking the strict embargo with early reviews.
Time magazine's critic has compared Pynchon's tome - at 1,085 pages, double the size of an average serious-length novel - with his toaster. "But my toaster doesn't offer  |
