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 ynchon’s reading was a little disappointing. Not because of what he read, which was a brilliant chapter from the sequel to Gravity’s Rainbow (in which Tyrone Slothrop has become a field-agent for a group of 3 or 4 [the exact number isn’t entirely clear] hypertext novelists known as “the Sublime,” and is going around the country covertly wiring up secondary schools and major corporate intranets so that their homepages would, at the turn of the Millennium, automatically default to “the Sublime” hypertext novel [-within-the-novel]), but because of the way in which he read it. Everyone assumed, indeed the Press had reported, that this event was going to be a major “coming out” for the infamously secretive novelist. However, after the Metallica set, when they announced, “the inimitable Mr. Thomas Pynchon,” thirty-five guys, all dressed in identical black suits and fedoras, all of them with the same exact tan-colored tie with Sony clip-on lavaliere microphone attached, took the stage simultaneously. Most of them looked alike, and they all read or at least lip-synched the passage, so that the vast majority of Americans, present company excluded (Hi Tom) still have entirely no clue what Thomas Pynchon looks like.
I could have sworn I saw William twitch several times during that reading. He’s always been crazy about Tom’s work, though even after reading it 14 times, he still has absolutely no idea what was going on in Gravity’s Rainbow.
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