Thomas Pynchon Sells His Archive!

 

Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon, 1973. I remember this book on my parent's bookshelves when I was a kid.

I have never read any of Thomas Pynchon’s work, but I know of his reputation as one of the leading post-modern novelists of the last 60 years. I also know of Pynchon’s aversion to publicity of any kind, to the point where there are very few confirmed photographs of him. So, I was quite surprised to read today that Pynchon has sold his literary archive to the Huntington Library in California. The amount of the sale is undisclosed, but there are no photographs included in the archive.  

It’s so bizarre to me that Pynchon cares so much about his image, publicity, and privacy. In Pynchon’s case, like that of J.D. Salinger, it seems to me that the obsession with privacy on the part of the authors tends to have the unintended consequence of focusing attention on their obsession about privacy.  

I’m not a celebrity, so I can’t claim to fully understand Thomas Pynchon’s position, but I find it hard to believe that the pressures of publicity on an American author are so onerous as to justify the great lengths that Pynchon has gone to try to elude notice. Look at Philip Roth: he was a famous author who seemed to thread the needle perfectly. Roth gave interviews, but he didn’t court publicity the way that say, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and Norman Mailer did. Roth wasn’t showing up to trade barbs with Johnny Carson. I feel confident in asserting that Roth’s life was not ruined by celebrity seekers, autograph hounds, or the paparazzi. So why would Thomas Pynchon’s life be any different?  

Here’s a quote from The New York Times article: “Karla Nielsen, the library’s curator of literary collections, said the archive reflects how Pynchon, now 85, has approached his career. ‘There’s been a real effort throughout his life to have the focus be on the work,’ she said, when asked about negotiations with Pynchon and his family. ‘That was very similar to how they wanted the archive.’” 

I want to shout, “No, don’t you get it? The focus is on exactly the wrong thing! The focus is on how there are no pictures of him!” Ironic, right? The very thing that you think is making people focus on the work is actually taking focus AWAY from the work! 

I’m sure every artist wants the focus to be solely on their work, and not their personal lives, but to get to the level of fame as an artist where people actually care about your personal life generally means that you have wildly succeeded in your field, and you are probably quite wealthy. Especially when you’re a novelist who writes dense, post-modern doorstoppers of books. So I just don’t empathize that much with Thomas Pynchon’s penchant for secrecy.  

Pynchon also seems to hold a lot of sway with libraries: when the Morgan Library acquired 120 letters from Pynchon to his agent, he protested, and the Morgan caved, announcing that the letters would remain sealed until Pynchon’s death. What’s in those letters? Probably nothing that interesting, honestly.  

The article about Pynchon’s archive did give me a great title for a McSweeney's article though: Thomas Pynchon’s Camera Roll is All Selfies.