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Did Thomas Pynchon Publish a Novel Under the Pseudonym Adrian Jones Pearson?
- firebones 11y agoWhat better way to generate buzz for your unnoticed novel than to spread a rumor it was penned by a literary luminary, watch it climb the charts as people buy it to "decide for themselves", and then get your 15 minutes of fame as you sheepishly out yourself as the true author who, aw shucks, is just a simple small college professor caught up in this literary whirlwind.
- ChuckFrank 11y agoAccording to Linander’s law of headlines, the answer to this polar Yes/No questions would be equal to a coin toss. So maybe yes, and maybe no.
- savanaly 11y agoBut in this particular case, the answer is either yes with 100% probability or no with 100% probability, depending on whether it was written by Pynchon or not ;)
- elektromekatron 11y agoNot if only half of it is written by Pynchon.
- JadeNB 11y agoBut that's like saying that the odds of winning the lottery are that you win with 100% probability or you lose with 100% probability, depending on whether your numbers match or not.
- ctdonath 11y agoThat is a brilliant observation that I shall abuse frequently. Nicely complements my preferred "statistics mean nothing when they happen to you."
- JadeNB 11y ago'Brilliant' is overselling it—it's just an update of the old joke "this chuck is 50% rabbit meat; I make it with one rabbit and one horse"—but thanks!
- spacehome 11y agoYes, probabilities are not statements about the world; they're statements about your knowledge of the world. As you gain knowledge, the probabilities (as far as you can compute) change. This is also how different people can compute different probabilities for the same event.
- olympus 11y agoBut according to Betteridge's law we should answer "no." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- Dotnaught 11y agoIf only we had some technology that could help... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/software-helps-identify-anonymous-writers-or-helps-them-stay-that-way/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/software-helps-iden...
- dfan 11y agoThe author presents basically no evidence for this hypothesis.
- zygomega 11y agoI disagree. The evidence in quotation, plot detail and story-line convinced me it was either Pynchon or a brilliant mimic. None else does it like this.
- dfan 11y agoI've read all of Pynchon's books and a lot of books whose authors were clearly inspired by Pynchon, and I don't see any reason to assume this doesn't fall into the latter category, especially after reading a few pages online. For one thing, I think it would be the first Pynchon novel written in the first person. The prose also seems markedly less lyrical than Pynchon's. I mean, if Pynchon put his name on this, I wouldn't say, "I disbelieve this, he must be attaching his name to someone else's work," but I would say, "Huh, he really changed up his style for this one." But he didn't put his name on this.
- davisclark 11y agoPynchon wrote several short stories in highschool in the first person. See Voice of the Hamster (http://genius.com/Thomas-pynchon-voice-of-the-hamster-annotated http://genius.com/Thomas-pynchon-voice-of-the-hamster-annota...). I find the similarities between this story and Cow Country interesting (as it takes place at Hamster High.) Dr. Felch would fit right in. In addition, Pynchon's style of narration employs so much free indirect speech that it often begs to become first person. What did you say when Mason & Dixon was published?
- dfan 11y agoI said, "Huh, he really changed up his style for this one." It did have the same lyrical qualities as his other work, though. More importantly, it had his name rather than someone else's on the cover, which slightly increased my prior for whether he wrote it or not.
- tedunangst 11y ago"So much effort goes into credentialing the creator that we lose sight of the creation itself" Uhm, yes. So now you're here to accomplish what again? This is a strange article. Pynchon (or whoever) went to some effort to publish a book not attached to his name, and all you want to do is attach his name to the book?
- ksnieck 11y agoThere's a humorous fake website for the community college referenced in the book: http://www.coweye.org/ http://www.coweye.org/