THE GABBLER

July 5th, 2012
Interrogation with Reclusive Writer Thomas Pynchon Yields Very Little

 Recently, the gang at The Gabbler decided it wasn’t fair that one of their favorite American novelists, Thomas Pynchon, wouldn’t sit for an interview. I mean, who doesn’t want to be interviewed? Who doesn’t want to spill their secrets? So, with a little snooping and a lot of hints from Nancy Jo Sales and NYMag, The Gabbler was able to track down the 75-year-old Pynchon at a neighborhood deli in New York City. We bound him, gagged him and stuffed him in a garbage bag in the trunk of our car. If we can’t make him talk, no one can.

 

Lisa DeBenedictis: Mr. Pynchon. I am such a big fan.

 

Thomas Pynchon: Is this going to play out like that Steven King novel? If so, I just want to be clear: I’m a married man. Although, for the record, you’re a bit more appealing than that Kathy Bates.

 

LD: No, no, no. I’m not abducting you! I just want to ask you a few questions.

 

TP: Are you planning on publishing my answers for your little magazine thing?

 

LD: Well, yeah.

 

TP: Sorry. I don’t give interviews.

 

LD: Come on! Please?

 

TP: You abducted me while I was getting a bagel! I’m tied up in a chair in some basement that smells like grape popsicles and burnt hair. And, I’m about 95 percent sure a rat just crawled by my leg.

 

LD: Okay, for the record, it’s called a “garden level” apartment. New York’s expensive! And we happen to be a start up.

 

TP: I get it. You’re in a desperate place. But that doesn’t make kidnapping an old man the right answer.

 

LD: It’s not kidnapping. I just want to know stuff about you! I mean, we all love your books. We think you’re brilliant. So why won’t you tell me your favorite color?

 

TP: What the hell does that have to do with my books?

 

LD: I just want to know!

 

TP: Humans are strange creatures.

 

LD: Mr. Pynchon, I don’t want to do this, but I have ways of making you talk.

 

TP: You have posters of puppies on your fridge. You lack the resolve, my dear.

 

LD: (Leans forward, and begins to unlace his shoes.) Please don’t make me do this. Just tell me your greatest influence. Your biggest regret. Your favorite place in the world. What you’re afraid of. What you eat for dinner. Anything!

 

TP: I—I can’t.

 

LD: (Removes his socks.) Then I have no choice. Just for the record, I want to you know that I respect the hell out of you. (Begins to tickle his feet.)

 

TP: HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! AHHH! HE-HE-HE-HE! STOP! STOP! HA-HA-HA—

 

LD: (Pauses.) Will you answer my questions?

 

TP: Never.

 

LD: All right then. You know, sooner or later, you’ll crack. They always do.

 

TP: HA-HA-HA-HE-HE-HE-HE! OKAY! HA-HA! OKAY! STOP! HA-HA—

 

LD: So, boxers or briefs, Mr. Pynchon?

 

TP: Would you mind if I ask you a question first?

 

LD: Make it quick. We’ve got an interview to do.

 

TP: What is it that you like about my writing?

 

LD: Well…I like that you question the world around you. That you dig for a deeper understanding and don’t take things at face value. I like that you can capture distrust, secrecy, paranoia, and loneliness so beautifully, but still have the skill to make me laugh in the following paragraph. I like that when I read your work, I feel like you understand me and the mess that is my mind, and that I feel this spark, this warmth, this connection with you, even though we’ve never met until now.

 

TP: Well–

 

LD: –And I love that you can write passages that make my hairs stand on end, like this one: “I am the twentieth century. I am the ragtime and the tango; sans-serif, clean geometry. I am the virgin’s-hair whip and the cunningly detailed shackles of decadent passion. I am every lonely railway station in every capital of Europe. I am the Street, the fanciless buildings of government. the cafe-dansant, the clockwork figure, the jazz saxophone, the tourist-lady’s hairpiece, the fairy’s rubber breasts, the traveling clock which always tells the wrong time and chimes in different keys. I am the dead palm tree, the Negro’s dancing pumps, the dried fountain after tourist season. I am all the appurtenances of night.”

TP: I liked that one, too.

 

LD: Yeah.

 

TP: The problem is, if I did give you answers, they would never live up to the answers you’ve built up in your mind. Don’t you see that? When you encounter a work of art that speaks to you, it does so for any number of reasons. And if it’s a great work of art, it has more to offer the world than anything the artist could ever say about it. A great work of art speaks for itself. And it speaks volumes.

 

LD: Yeah. You’re right.

 

TP: I know I’m right.

 

LD: Is that why you don’t give interviews?

 

TP: Nah. I’m not nearly that stuck up. I just don’t like people all that much.

 

LD: Fair enough, I guess.

 

TP: Are–are you going to keep tickling me?

 

LD: No, I guess not. (Unties him.)

 

TP: Thank you.

 

LD: Sorry I tortured you.

 

TP: It’s all right. It’s pretty much expected in this day and age.

 

LD: Can you get home safely from here?

 

TP: If you tell me where the hell I am, sure.

 

LD: No problem.

 

TP: Oh, and one more thing: my favorite color… it’s blue.

 

LD: (Faints.)

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