Thomas Pynchon, Roddy Doyle
Der amerikanische Schriftsteller Thomas Pynchon wurde am 8. Mai 1937 in Glen Cove auf Long Island, geboren. Nach Abschluss der Oyster Bay High School im Jahre 1953 studierte er zunächst Physik, später englische Literatur an der Cornell-Universität, wo er Schüler von Vladimir Nabokov war. Während sich Nabokov selbst nicht an seinen prominenten Schüler erinnern konnte, wusste Nabokovs Frau von Pynchons markanter Handschrift, die Schreib- und Druckbuchstaben vereint, zu berichten. Während seiner Studienzeit war Pynchon mit Richard Fariña befreundet, zu dessen Roman Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (1966) er 1983 ein Vorwort verfasste. 1955 unterbrach er das Studium, um zwei Jahre bei der US Navy zu dienen. Nach seinem Abschluss 1958 lebte er ein Jahr im New Yorker Greenwich Village, wo er an seinem ersten Roman arbeitete. 1960 fing er als technischer Redakteur bei Boeing an. Nach dem Erscheinen seines ersten Romans V. im Jahr 1963 schottete er sich völlig von der Öffentlichkeit ab und lebte fortan wohl an der amerikanischen Westküste. Spätestens seit den 1990er Jahren wohnt er in Manhattan mit seiner Frau und Agentin Melanie Jackson und ihrem Sohn, Jackson Pynchon. 1997 spürte ihn dort ein Reporter von CNN auf. Pynchon verbat sich die Veröffentlichung der dabei entstandenen Aufnahmen als Verletzung seiner Privatsphäre, gab dem Sender aber ein kurzes Interview. Es kursieren nur einige über vierzig Jahre alte Fotos von Pynchon; zu sehen sind sie beispielsweise im Film A Journey Into The Mind Of [P.] (2001), der sein Leben und Werk thematisiert. Das Rätsel um seine Person ist mittlerweile Bestandteil der amerikanischen Populärkultur.
Aus: Inherent Vice
“She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn’t seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe and the Fish T-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she swore she’d never look.
“That you, Shasta? The packaging fooled me there for a minute.”
“Need your help, Doc.”
They stood in the streetlight through the kitchen window there’d never been much point putting curtains over and listened to the thumping of the surf from down the hill. Some nights, when the wind was right, you could hear the surf all over town.
Nobody was saying much. What was this? “So! You know I have an office now? Just like a day job and everything?”
“I looked in the phone book, almost went over there. But then I thought, better for everybody if this looks like a secret rendezvous.”
OK, nothing romantic tonight. Bummer. But it might be a paying gig. “Somebody’s keeping a close eye?”
“Just spent an hour on surface streets trying to make it look good.”
“How about a beer?” He went to the fridge, pulled two cans out of the case he kept inside, handed one to Shasta.
“There’s this guy,” she was saying.
There would be. No point getting emotional. And if he had a nickel for every time he’d heard a client start off this way, he would be over in Hawaii now, loaded day and night, digging the waves at Waimea, or better yet hiring somebody to dig them for him. . . . “Gentleman of the straight-world persuasion,” he beamed.”
Thomas Pynchon (Glen Cove, 8. Mai 1937)
Buttons vom kamerascheuen Pynchon
Der irische Schriftsteller und Drehbuchautor Roderick Doyle wurde am 8. Mai 1958 in Dublin geboren. Doyle wuchs in Kilbarrack, County Dublin, auf. Seine Eltern Rory und Ita Doyle, ein Schriftsetzer und Ausbilder im Druckereigewerbe und eine ehemalige Krankenhaussekretärin, waren für irische Verhältnisse liberal und aufgeschlossen. Roddy Doyle wuchs mit protestantischen und jüdischen Freunden in einer "gemischten" Gemeinde auf. Rory Doyle lehrte seinen Sohn schon in frühen Jahren die Liebe zur Literatur. Roddy Doyle arbeitete - trotz des großen Erfolgs als Schriftsteller - bis Ende der 1990er Jahre als Lehrer für Englisch und Erdkunde, bevor er den Beruf zugunsten seiner Kunst aufgab. Roddy Doyle lebt mit seiner Frau Belinda und seinen beiden Söhnen in Dublin.
Aus: Paula Spencer
“She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn’t. Cope. At all.
This is one of the bad days.
She could feel it coming. From the minute she woke up. One of those days. It hasn’t let her down.
She’ll be forty-eight in a few weeks. She doesn’t care about that. Not really.
It’s more than four months since she had a drink. Four months and five days. One of those months was February. That’s why she started measuring the time in months. She could jump three days. But it’s a leap year; she had to give one back. Four months, five days. A third of a year. Half a pregnancy, nearly.
A long time.
The drink is only one thing.
She’s on her way home from work. She’s walking from the station. There’s no energy in her. Nothing in her legs. Just pain. Ache. The thing the drink gets down to.
But the drink is only part of it. She’s coped well with the drink. She wants a drink. She doesn’t want a drink. She doesn’t want a drink. She fights it. She wins. She’s proud of that. She’s pleased. She’ll keep going. She knows she will.
But sometimes she wakes up, knowing the one thing. She’s alone.
She still has Jack. Paula wakes him every morning. He’s a great sleeper. It’s a long time now since he was up before her. She’s proud of that too. She sits on his bed. She ruffles his hair. Ruffles — that’s the word. A head made for ruffling. Jack will break hearts.
And she still has Leanne. Mad Leanne. Mad, funny. Mad, good. Mad, brainy. Mad, lovely — and frightening.
They’re not small any more, not kids. Leanne is twenty-two. Jack is nearly sixteen. Leanne has boyfriends. Paula hasn’t met any of them. Jack, she doesn’t know about. He tells her nothing. He’s been taller than her since he was twelve. She checks his clothes for girl-smells but all she can smell is Jack.”
Roddy Doyle (Dublin, 8. Mai 1958)
Aus: Inherent Vice
“She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn’t seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe and the Fish T-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she swore she’d never look.
“That you, Shasta? The packaging fooled me there for a minute.”
“Need your help, Doc.”
They stood in the streetlight through the kitchen window there’d never been much point putting curtains over and listened to the thumping of the surf from down the hill. Some nights, when the wind was right, you could hear the surf all over town.
Nobody was saying much. What was this? “So! You know I have an office now? Just like a day job and everything?”
“I looked in the phone book, almost went over there. But then I thought, better for everybody if this looks like a secret rendezvous.”
OK, nothing romantic tonight. Bummer. But it might be a paying gig. “Somebody’s keeping a close eye?”
“Just spent an hour on surface streets trying to make it look good.”
“How about a beer?” He went to the fridge, pulled two cans out of the case he kept inside, handed one to Shasta.
“There’s this guy,” she was saying.
There would be. No point getting emotional. And if he had a nickel for every time he’d heard a client start off this way, he would be over in Hawaii now, loaded day and night, digging the waves at Waimea, or better yet hiring somebody to dig them for him. . . . “Gentleman of the straight-world persuasion,” he beamed.”
Thomas Pynchon (Glen Cove, 8. Mai 1937)
Buttons vom kamerascheuen Pynchon
Der irische Schriftsteller und Drehbuchautor Roderick Doyle wurde am 8. Mai 1958 in Dublin geboren. Doyle wuchs in Kilbarrack, County Dublin, auf. Seine Eltern Rory und Ita Doyle, ein Schriftsetzer und Ausbilder im Druckereigewerbe und eine ehemalige Krankenhaussekretärin, waren für irische Verhältnisse liberal und aufgeschlossen. Roddy Doyle wuchs mit protestantischen und jüdischen Freunden in einer "gemischten" Gemeinde auf. Rory Doyle lehrte seinen Sohn schon in frühen Jahren die Liebe zur Literatur. Roddy Doyle arbeitete - trotz des großen Erfolgs als Schriftsteller - bis Ende der 1990er Jahre als Lehrer für Englisch und Erdkunde, bevor er den Beruf zugunsten seiner Kunst aufgab. Roddy Doyle lebt mit seiner Frau Belinda und seinen beiden Söhnen in Dublin.
Aus: Paula Spencer
“She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn’t. Cope. At all.
This is one of the bad days.
She could feel it coming. From the minute she woke up. One of those days. It hasn’t let her down.
She’ll be forty-eight in a few weeks. She doesn’t care about that. Not really.
It’s more than four months since she had a drink. Four months and five days. One of those months was February. That’s why she started measuring the time in months. She could jump three days. But it’s a leap year; she had to give one back. Four months, five days. A third of a year. Half a pregnancy, nearly.
A long time.
The drink is only one thing.
She’s on her way home from work. She’s walking from the station. There’s no energy in her. Nothing in her legs. Just pain. Ache. The thing the drink gets down to.
But the drink is only part of it. She’s coped well with the drink. She wants a drink. She doesn’t want a drink. She doesn’t want a drink. She fights it. She wins. She’s proud of that. She’s pleased. She’ll keep going. She knows she will.
But sometimes she wakes up, knowing the one thing. She’s alone.
She still has Jack. Paula wakes him every morning. He’s a great sleeper. It’s a long time now since he was up before her. She’s proud of that too. She sits on his bed. She ruffles his hair. Ruffles — that’s the word. A head made for ruffling. Jack will break hearts.
And she still has Leanne. Mad Leanne. Mad, funny. Mad, good. Mad, brainy. Mad, lovely — and frightening.
They’re not small any more, not kids. Leanne is twenty-two. Jack is nearly sixteen. Leanne has boyfriends. Paula hasn’t met any of them. Jack, she doesn’t know about. He tells her nothing. He’s been taller than her since he was twelve. She checks his clothes for girl-smells but all she can smell is Jack.”
Roddy Doyle (Dublin, 8. Mai 1958)
froumen - 8. Mai, 18:40
