Thomas Pynchon discussion

I discovered Thomas Pynchon at university, where Slow Learner was a set text for American Literature. I quickly became fascinated by his universe, especially with V and Gravity's Rainbow. Everything that he wrote seemed to connect in a deep, musical way with the things that were happening in my life. This feeling was amplified when I went to Oxford to look for a flat, and met up with a friend of my brother's who knew people with a room going spare. After looking at the house we went to the pub and she asked why I had decided to do a doctorate in English.
My answer began with an explanation that Thomas Pynchon had so fascinated me that I had begun thinking about postgraduate study because of him.
When I mentioned this, she was amazed, and told me that she and her mother had lived with Pynchon in Oxford in the mid-to-late seventies, and that he had spent a great deal of time doing research into what became Mason and Dixon in the Bodelian library. She also said that the reason he had left England was, ironically, because he had ordered books from America (also for research) which were impounded by British customs and judged to be obscene. As a result of this, his visa was not renewed and he was forced to return to the united states. However, she said that she still saw him occasionally at family get-togethers on the eastern seaboard, and that one thing that still stuck in her mind was that TP was a very good tiddlywinks player.
I never completed my doctorate, and I lost touch with her, but there you go...

great story!

tiddlywinks....go figure.

I recently received a message from another Goodreader who informed me that my story has since been corroborated in the form of Christopher Hitchens' autobiogrpahy Hitch 22. See the following excerpt for more: http://www.alecmichod.com/archives/572

Although I don't have a Thomas Pynchon story, I do have one about one of his characters, Charles Mason from Mason & Dixon. I had read 3 of Pynchon's novels before M&D, but I was still completely bowled over. I attempted to read anything I could get my hands on about his novel or the historical events in it. Since I work in Philadelphia, the city were some of the novel's actions take place, I decided to give Mr Mason a visit at Christ's Church cemetery one day. Much to my chagrin, the cemetery was closed to the public that day - I could see Ben Franklin's grave from the locked gate, but no Mason. I happened to know a man who works for Christ church and asked him where I could find Mason's grave. He said, "He's buried here but you'll never find him!" Here the flat stone graves had become so weathered that the inscriptions wore off and after a while there was no institutional memory or records to pinpoint where he was actually buried. I think it's a similar irony as Cherrycoke's missing Mason's funeral in the first place!

hey gang

Salut