THEY SEEK HIM HERE. THEY seek him there. Those literary types seek him everywhere.
Is he in Chelsea or is he in Hell’s Kitchen?
That damned elusive Thomas Pynchon.
The author of “Gravity’s Rainbow,” “Vineland” and the recently published “Mason & Dixon,” Pynchon, 60, is considered by many critics to be one of America’s finest living novelists. He is also one of the literary world’s more mysterious figures, rivaling J.
D. Salinger in his aversion to publicity.
The writer, who grow up in Oyster Bay, L.
I., and published his first novel, “V,” in 1963, has never granted an interview or allowed himself to be photographed. But unlike Salinger, a cranky, Jack Kevorkian-like figure who holes up in New Hampshire, Pynchon is not a nutty recluse.
Last year, a writer for New York magazine found him living openly in Manhattan with his wife — a literary agent — and son. His exact address is still known only to a handful of people (New York did not print it), but that doesn’t mean he’s hiding from the world. Indeed, according to reports, he dines with editors and writer friends, and picnics in Central Park with his family.
“The term recluse is inappropriate,” says John M. Krafft, a professor of English at Miami University in Ohio and an editor of Pynchon Notes, a literary journal. “He doesn’t hide or exhibit any unusual behavior. He simply avoids publicity because he believes his work should stand on its own.
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Adds literary critic Vince Passaro: “I’ve heard that he is perfectly normal, warm and funny. He just doesn’t do readings or have his picture taken, which is almost unimaginable in this day and age of the media circus, but which is actually a fairly sane practice.
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If Pynchon granted interviews, he would certainly be in demand right now. “Mason & Dixon” has received glowing notices, with some critics hailing it as his most satisfying and accessible work.
Which is not to say it’s a beach read. Like most Pynchon novels, it’s long — 773 pages. The plot follows the picaresque adventures of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, the surveyors of Mason-Dixon line fame. The tone is jokey, ironic and surreal. And the Pynchon trademarks paranoia, schizophrenia, lousy puns and passing references to pop culture are all in place.
The novel, says Passaro, is a “brilliant study of the ridiculousness of Enlightenment thinking and the many paradoxes and ironies in the fabrication of the American nation state.
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Pynchon’s deranged, alienated view of the world, coupled with his elusiveness, has spawned a thriving netherworld of Pynchon enthusiasts. The Internet is full of Pynchon Web sites, which contain close textual analyses of sentences from his novels, as well as gossip about his private life.
FOR YEARS, PYNCHON LORE had it that the author lived a nomadic life. He was sighted in Mexico, where, it was said, people called him “Pancho Villa” because of his gunslinger mustache. There were also rumors that he lived in Aptos, Calif., but had to flee after his masseuse found out who he really was.
Alas, the New York magazine story seems to have sucked the life out of the Pynchon rumor mill.
“I was afraid it would set people going, scouring New York for him,” says Krafft. “But there haven’t been as many sightings of him as in years past. I guess it was more fun to think of him living at large somewhere in California than it is to think of him living in an apartment in Manhattan like everybody else.
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