This month saw the release of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, Inherent Vice.  Initial reactions from critics have been a mixture of praise for playfully using the classic detective story template (with a twist in the background landscape of 1970’s California) to create a “blast to read regardless of whether it makes sense” to derisions of being nothing more than “Pynchon Lite” for clocking in just under 400 pages.

But for Pynchonites, like myself, the release of Inherent Vice marked something else—a new addition to Pynchon lore.  To be a Pynchon fan is to be familiar with the mythology surrounding the reclusive author. You trade stories, like baseball cards, with other fans.  “Have you heard that he wrote a bunch of ‘letters-to-the editor’ at some Northern California newspaper as an old Russian woman?” Someone might ask you. To which you say, “Yeah.  Did you know he once jumped out a window in Mexico City to get away from a photographer?”  You also hunt and search for tidbits and stories that add to the mystique of a man, who’s only out matched by J.D. Salinger as a literary recluse (and according to some theorists, the same person).

So when a trailer for the novel was uploaded to Penguin’s YouTube channel on the same day the book hit the shelves—many in the community began to speculate that maybe it was Pynchon himself doing the narration in the voice of Inherent Vice’s main character, Doc Sportello.  It sounded a lot like this infamous Pynchon cameo in an episode of “The Simpsons.”

Then, the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog, which covers arts and entertainment, launched an investigation to determine if in fact the voices match and hired an expert to compare the samples. According to them, their expert confirms that the “‘voices were delivered by the same person,’” which they used to leverage a confirmation from a Penguin spokesperson that the voice on the trailer is indeed Pynchon’s.

Now before you go thinking that you’ve heard  the man who wrote V., Gravity’s Rainbow, and the Crying of Lot 49 speak, I’d like to point out that just the voice from the trailer matches the one we (and “The Simpsons” producers) are told is that of Thomas Pynchon.  It could easily just be an actor—hired both times to step in for the author.  This is, in fact, a man whose editor hired this guy to be “Thomas Pynchon” and accept the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974.

If this whole thing strikes you as slightly familiar—you’re right.  Back in 2006, a detailed summary of Pynchon’s previous novel, Against the Day, was posted on its Amazon.com page just before the release date, signed (if you can claim such a thing in the digital world) by the author and then quickly taken down.  After many write ups and message board arguments, it was confirmed that Pynchon did indeed write and post the summary.

So, if he didn’t know before the Amazon incident, Pynchon (or at least who ever manages his PR) would most certainly be aware that any online presence would create some sort of publicity.  I have to wonder: could Thomas Pynchon be an Internet marketer?  Could he have orchestrated this entire incident to attract attention for his new book?   Could he be playing us all for rubes?

The truth is that a writer with Pynchon’s public persona of mystery and purposeful coyness arising today is inconceivable and unlikely.  Can you imagine a bestselling literary author in this day and age refusing to make ANY public appearances?  And for the most part, Pynchon’s air of secrecy makes the experience of reading his work a little bit more enjoyable.   It also forces you to question and hypothesize what is real and what isn’t (just like many of his characters ).  And maybe that’s the whole point of Thomas Pynchon.

[Writer's note: I would love to have embedded the videos so you could watch them withouth leaving the site, but apparently wordpress will not let me do that anymore.  If you know how to do that (and yes, I did try dropping the embedded code from YouTube directly into the HTML), please let me know via comments and I will update the post.  Thanks]