On this day in 1973 Thomas Pynchon's third novel, Gravity's Rainbow, entered American bookstores and split the literary world. Pulitzer Prize jurors unanimously recommended it, but Pulitzer advisory board members called it "unreadable" and "obscene." The novel seduced many critics but found few readers who would finish its 760 pages on the first attempt. Meanwhile, the author stayed out of the public eye, just as he had at the publication of his first two books. His fan club continued to grow, intrigued by the most camera-shy writer since J. D. Salinger.
Read the story in Today In Literature.
The reclusive writer! What a concept! I miss those days big time -- when it was perfectly respectable not to desire to go out and hustle your book like a man in a medicine show. Those days are long gone in this age of Homo Consumerus, and writers are expected to hustle just like any other money-grubbing citizen. I'm glad I'm old enough to have experienced an alternative to this commercial nonsense. Invisibility never hurt the sales of Pynchon or Salinger.
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