Thomas Pynchon on Sloth

Evidently there are some big Pynhon fans down at Pomona College, where they have assembled many of his uncollected works (book reviews, introductions, essays, and even some of his work as a technical writer). This essay on Sloth and one writer's relation to this deadly sin is great stuff. Here's a sample:

IN his classical discussion of the subject in the "Summa Theologica," Aquinas termed Sloth, or acedia, one of the seven capital sins. He said he was using "capital" to mean "primary" or "at the head of" because such sins gave rise to others, but there was an additional and darker sense resonating luridly just beneath and not hurting the power of his argument, for the word also meant "deserving of capital punishment." Hence the equivalent term "mortal," as well as the punchier English "deadly."

But come on, isn't that kind of extreme, death for something as lightweight as Sloth? Sitting there on some medieval death row, going, "So, look, no offense, but what'd they pop you for anyway?"

"Ah, usual story, they came around at the wrong time of day, I end up taking out half of some sheriff's unit with my two-cubit crossbow, firing three-quarter-inch bolts on auto feed. Anger, I guess.... How about you?"

"Um, well ... it wasn't anger...."

"Ha! Another one of these Sloth cases, right?"

". . fact, it wasn't even me."

"Never is, slugger -- say, look, it's almost time for lunch. You wouldn't happen to be a writer, by any chance?

For all you Donald Barthelme fans (I certainly am, and for the Walker Percy fans, Walker Percy was one too, so you should be too), there's also this fine introduction to a collection of Barthelme odds and ends.

And did you know that Mr. Pynchon has a new book coming out? You can preorder it here. Pynchon himself wrote the following synopsis:

Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.

Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.

I still haven't made it through Mason & Dixon yet, but I will. Although this one looks better. I think I'll read it first, and rekindle my adoricism for one of the truly, truly greats of our times. Write up there with Don B and WP.