/lit/ - Literature

>>15833170
I hope one of them figures out which professional writer it actually is. I tracked him backwards to an early post where he lists. Would love to email the guy.

>A/S/L: early 40s / Male / USA
Education/Field: Ivy League undergrad / Oxbridge grad / Classics and English
Employment/Salary: Professional writer (which is why I'm being so deliberately vague) / varies widely from year to year, but b/w 15k - 50k
Liked these 3 books: The Satyricon by Petronius; Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell; Posthumous Memoirs of Braz Cubas by Machado de Assis
Hated these 3 books: Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics by Stephen Landsburg; Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children by Jonathan Kellerman; The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
Favorite Author: Byron, Shelley, & Keats.
Least Favorite Author: Ayn Rand or St John of Patmos
Genres: I can't think of a genre I haven't been fixated on at one time or another, except maybe writing about music, for the reason that writing about music strikes me as about as useful as dancing about architecture.

What you use as a bookmark: paper currency from foreign countries I've never visited; photos of people I love, or postcards they've sent me; ironic or ridiculously tacky manufactured bookmarks (Zac Efron, Jonas Brothers)

>>15833203
>>15833170
are these posts made by bots, what the fuck are you talking about

>>15833221
Sorry the greentext got fucked up. But I fell down the Not Bill Murray rabbithole last year and pretty found every substantial post he made on /lit./ One of his earlier ones lists the above biographical details that I just didn't format right. If you don't know about Not Bill Murray/Pinecone/Pale Flamer/Charles Kinbote/Prince Lucio Rimanez/Ghost of Mary McCarthy you're a newfriend, so don't worry about it.

>>15833221

Hijacking this thread to ask which edition of Gravity's Rainbow I want.

>>15833170
>hipinion
literally who

>>15833203
not much to do on desu

i do recall him posting that one of his novels (his first?) caused a stir among a certain crowd in britain/england for some reason. could be a complete fabrication, but it stuck with me

>>15833330
all are good, stop being a goober

>>15833330
Viking Press edition is the patrician choice

>>15833221
they're schizos who imagine they post with famous celebrities they're aware of

>>15833330
The original Bantam edition with the gold cover and the single vertical rainbow stripe on the side is unironically the best edition, and it's a great size as well for portability

>>15833364
also he attended valley forge

>>15833856
and it wasn’t a novel, it was an article, which was either originally published in the guardian or had its response printed there. either way he made the front page

>>15833170
Has anyone ever guessed as to whether or not Murray Poster is Charlie Kaufman?

I fucking hate this, now a bunch of brainlets will be here. Literary all good internet culture was created here and stolen.

>>15834305
lmao, the lit you are looking for has been dead for years. I only come on here to make fun of newfag shitheads

>>15834247
He's a little too old. Gary Shteyngart was a better fit (especially considering the timing of Super Sad True Love Story or whatever it's called), but Pinecone insisted he studied at Oxbridge at some point, and t b h GS sounds like a brainlet and never gushes over lit. or lit conspiracies in interviews...I doubt the dude's even read Shakespeare.

>>15834540
also Charlie Kaufmann isn't gay is he? That discredits Shteyngart as well

>>15834321
I know mate, but believe, it can and will go down even more.

kaufman and shteyngart are way too high profile. i can’t see this guy shifting many copies or making appearances all over the place. his books most likely never got paperback editions. and while early lit was way different from nu-lit, you gotta be wired a certain way to actively go on 4chan and stay for more than 15 minutes. fwiw i think the uk connection is key here

>>15835314
I don't think he isn't American though. He references American zeitgeist shit, as well as specifically American academics he knows. Also, he mentioned going after some boy in Brooklyn whenever he revisited explicitly under the Not-Pynchon moniker, so he lives near or around NY.

hilarious how a bunch of oldfags invested themselves in posting on the same board as an anon account they were convinced was pynchon because it was moderately familiar with one of his works

>>15833170
The guy on the thread seems to have an idea of who it is. The email they gave seems like a reference to a Marie Corelli character which in itself seems like an elaborate reference to Cornell University.

Any British authors who went to Cornell?

>>15833203
>>15835423
Harold Bloom went to Cornell and did a year at Oxbridge with the MacArthur Grant.

>>15835436
>harold bloom is pynchon

>>15835442
No, Harold Bloom is the poster.

>>15833330
just read the fucking book

Jesus how many years ago did all that go down again? 6, 7?

Take me back :,(

>>15833421
Not Bill Murray posted things that only somebody who had met Pynchon would know, and we know he hires very literary grad students to help him do research. I don't think it was Ruggles himself, but I do think it was one of those underlings. Line a few of those guys up and at least one of them is going to be the type of overread recluse who would come here and post in riddles.

>>15835479
Harold Bloom is not that whimsical and would not find the Brutish Vempire joke funny enough to use twice
>>15835642
Ten fucking years lad

>>15835479
even worse of a theory. now the stakes are mud.
>>15835684
"we know he..."
you dont. he's a reclusive writer. you dont know what he does or how he does it, and he doesnt want you to. stop believing schizophrenics.

>>15835699
Fuck off Pynchon, you old windbag. If you want me to read something you wrote so bad stop giving me (You)s and finish your novel about Japs masturbating to Willy Wonka.

>>15835713
I'm not Thomas Pynchon, I'm Jeremy Saulnier. Thomas Pynchon is dead and never really lived.

>>15835726
Oh hey, you made Murder Party. I watched that on Halloween with a girl I'm madly in love with who just thinks I'm a good friend. I thought it was good, everyone else said it was "weird."

>>15835423
Again, Ive looked into all this for going on three years. He’s American. I can promise you whatever “connection” you’re making now is some shit I tied up years ago. The MC connection is all linked to some Sorrows of Satan, which all leads back to Prince Lucio, DW Griffith, Ulysses by Joyce, and so on. It’s elaborate but doesn’t mean it’s Pynch. Again, the biggest innovation in the investigation is connecting Not Pynchon back to the Ghost of Mary McCarthy, and from there going back to older, anon posts like >>15833203 where Not Pynchon wasn’t doing acrobatics and just posting as a normal guy.

>>15836142
an expert! do you think 2015 ”not-pynchon” is the same person as the first one or an impostor?

>>15833248
are you referring to those old screencaps that "proved" pynchon posted here? I don't remember bill murray being involved. Regardless and anyways, don't shill your favourite shitty forum here

>>15836153
The same. You can tell based off the book recs, stylistic quirks, similarity of details... I think he posted here for a long time before he started Pynch posting, hence the backlog of Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Nabokov, Mary McCarthy, James Joyce posts

I believe there are two posters that are roped into this. I think the first one that started this whole shebang was the actual Thomas Pynchon: the style was robust, the opinions unique, and the perception of his own works was authorially complex.
Then, I think Thomas Pynchon got his good friend (who had apparently, supposedly, gotten lunch with his good friend Tommy Pynchon) to step in and start posting his anti-academic, high-minded opinions to get people off of his trail. And I think this is the person who was posting all that time ago and would parlay with people.
This would explain why the actual Thomas Pynchon keeps on posting here w pics of his manuscripts and letters and whatnot.

>>15836230
>This would explain why the actual Thomas Pynchon keeps on posting here w pics of his manuscripts and letters and whatnot.
... What?

can’t believe people are still on the pynchon trail with this guy
>>15836230
show us something you think the actual pynchon posted

>>15836230
There’s no reason to think there are two posters. TP has never posted on here.

>>15836308
There’s really no more trail imo. I’ve combed every publicly available author who fits the bio listed in bits and pieces above. The dude really wasn’t that major writer, a working writer at best. There are plenty of incredibly smart people out there.

>>15833330
The first two editions in the pic are great, don't buy the last one.

>>15833170
https://atticuspinecone.wixsite.com/pinecone/collection

He also solved catcher in the rye

I'm the dude who posted the stuff in the hipinion thread. I've been on /lit/ on and off for years. I think I first found out about the not-pynchon posts in like 2013? Just started thinking about them again during quarantine and thought it would be fun to dig in/share the posts.

>>15833203
This guy has basically all of the biographical info I've been able to string together except for a couple of bits and some lucky googling.

>>15833856
This post tells me we are on almost the same wavelength, or at least saw the same post. Close but its not this school.

I really don't know how I feel about doxxing the person. Waiting on agent/author contact info from a publisher to see how they fell.

>>15837171
How they feel*

>>15837171
Do you really know his identity?

>>15837306
I'm like 99% sure. Age, schools, sexuality, publication # as of 2010, interests, and UK tabloid headlines all line up. For what its worth I'd never heard of this person prior to this afternoon.

>>15837316
Hell there's even a wild Harold Bloom connection

>>15837316
Then you can tell us his name and if he is a professional writer. This won't be doxxing since at the moment its only speculation and you didn't use any illegal means in your deduction. No need to be so occupied with whether its morally right, anon.

>>15837408
I hear you and if they were still publishing and in the public sphere I would post it immediately bc I’m sure, like me, a lot of people would love some resolution.

But they aren’t publishing anymore, are hard to track down, and might be just trying to live their life now. I don’t wanna deprive someone of that right. Believe me, I’ll post it ASAP if they give me the OK.

>>15837171
What the fuck is hipinion? Never heard of the place in my life but everyone else in the thread seems to be acting like it's a household name

>>15837594
Not a household name at all. It’s a music forum that used to associated with pitchfork in like, 2000. Somehow it’s still going. Cool posters tho, but they skew older for sure.

>>15837444

------ -------
_____

Nobody is autist enough to track done a dude who's claim to fame is looking smart on /lit/. AT LEAST POST HIS NAME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

>>15833170
there's only one somewhat famous guy posting on /lit/ and it's peter thiel

monitoring this thread for any further developments. at the edge of me seat. nice job mr hipinion

I got accused of being Pynchon once here.
Nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.

>>15834305
>now

>>15837316
Do you have a throwaway email? Im the guy whose just as deep into this shit and would love to confirm my final theory.

great. if this is ”solved” or just gets a plausible candidate we can all finally leave this /pol/ colony shithole

>>15837171
>>15838318
If not, what school? I’m not kidding about doing this off and on for three years (maybe even four?). I would love closure and am one or two keystrokes away.

>>15838318
Pls 2nd anon you tell us. The 1st anon GTFO'd.

>>15833170
Good find

>>15838496
>>15837444
Haverford right? If so, we both know who it is

>>15837444
well, if he isn't anyone famous like pynchon or something, just some random writer like Arnold Bruckheimer, it wouldnt matter.

is our man an anarchist?

>>15836312
Hello Pynchon

would i be insane/deluded if i suggested that this guy still posted here as late as 2019? (albeit with a subdued, more straightforward style, though a few familiar quirks are easily spotted)

Hello fellow 4chanors, I am Thomas Pychon. Glad you liked my books

>>15839053
Ya this is what I think.

>>15833170
fucking faggot crossposting zoomers

>>15835684
>that only somebody who had met Pynchon would know
for instance?

>>15839656
No, I'm Pynchon this time. You can be Pinhead Larry.

>Pinecone on 4chan
I would never post here, you're all a bunch of fags

what the fuck is happening in this thread

>>15839879
Lots of people getting
P Y N C H E D

>>15839879
faggots obsessing unironically over years old posts on an online anonymous oaxacañan agave harvesting forum

>>15839925
still more interesting than all the other shit that’s up here nowadays

Isn't Thomas Pynchon primarily a highly select literary secret society? A Knopf editor confided to me the Pynchon syndicate is responsible for a great deal more than what's been published under the name "Thomas Pynchon." It seems like they're a strategic literary reserve keeping certain arts alive even if most of the market is elsewhere.

>>15839647
Yeah dude in 2015 he had a freak out because he thought someone on here was blackmailing him or something really far out like that. Doubt he still comes here.

>>15839663
Did he really have three things published then? The guy I’m onto technically has several things “put out.” Gonna do stylometrics on his stuff later.

>>15839716
Don’t listen to him. Stuff that isn’t publicly known =/= has met Pynchon.

>>15833170
Why are you people worried about normies? Normies don't use old-fashioned forums like that.

>>15836322
yeah a smart writer friend of tommy P

>>15836308
there was that dude posting the manuscript pages of V. a couple years ago. I don't feel like going through the archives but they're there

don't know about letters that pynchon himself posted but there are some that was posted by some guy whose university library had some archived, i think. saved only this one but if i remember correctly he posted a couple of others

>>15840469
>he posted a couple of others
for newfriends who don't know how to use waruso, go to this post on there and click [View same] by the image and then you'll see every time it's been reposted, scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the original thread with the other letters :)

>>15840469
yeah that was cool but it has nothing to do with the poster we’re talking about

>>15833170
>prepare for /lit/'s best kept secret to hit normieville any day now. i'd wager it'll make the rounds on twitter within the week and end up as en 'exposé' on some third-rate vice/buzzfeed/vox site by mid-to-late august
Let them come. /lit/ is transformative, not exclusive.

>>15840469
Is this the reason he disowned Tcol49?

>>15841160
It was a quickly written literary joke in the style of Pale Fire, where the reader is supposed to put together the pieces of the puzzle to realize nothing is at the center. Compare this with the labyrinth structure of GR or research-intensive M&D and you’ll see why he saw it as a lesser work.

>>15841459
Pynchon never explicitly answered that in the book tho. Also it is a lesser work just by the sheer difference of quantity alone, even then its his densest work except for maybe GR if looked below the surface. What I was getting at was that Pynch wished to be able to write a 'normal' novel but didn't Know how, later he wrote Lot 49 which disguises as a normal straightforward story but is anything but. Maybe his dislike stems from the 'ethical dishonesty' as a writer and creator, reading the preface now seems to reinforce this.

>>15836988
I have the last one and it's okay, apart from the cover.

>>15833330
I have Vintage and Penguin (left and middle in pic) and Penguin is much better made. Vintage is like a mass market paperback and doesn't have the squares in between chapters for some reason.

>>15834247
>Has anyone ever guessed as to whether or not Murray Poster is Charlie Kaufman?

huh????? Charlie Kaufman posts on /lit/??????

>>15836230
>This would explain why the actual Thomas Pynchon keeps on posting here w pics of his manuscripts and letters and whatnot.

does he post on the critique thread?

looks like our amateur sleuths got too close and the mystery author had them all silenced

too bad pynchon blows

>>15842269
blows what?

>>15842280
blows one-a these!

remind me to never start a thread with pynchon in the op again

>>15842523
Never start a thread with Pynchon in the OP again.

bUMP

>>15840273
There’s an interview where he basically lists roughly the same authors he highly praises in the 2015 posts

>>15839053
>>15839663
>>/lit/thread/S644846#p644886
Bingo. Mystery solved.

>>15843724
Forgot to mention, search the name you suspect on fukka and it only becomes all the more obvious to a laughable degree.

>>15843724
>>15843737
gizza hint lad

>>15842523
P Y N C H E D
Y
N
C
H
E
D

>>15843745
Everything you need is in this thread mate. 4+ years of weaponized autism.

>>15843724
Ya this is the exact post that sealed it for me.

>>15844069
Idk why I never noticed it before. I think I was just happy to have found his real book recommendations that I forgot to attend to the obvious.

>>15843946
oh well, maybe in another ten years

so to the niggas who cracked the case...how is this guy’s writing? any similarities to his posts?

I've found him and read one of his books. If I can do it, you can. It's not that difficult.

>>15845226
>read one of his books
doubtful
>>15845185
It’s 100% him. It’s kind of there in the articles. But more so in the soundbites. He has less online presence than even substantially less acclaimed writers, which seems kind of intentional in context to the 2015 paranoia posts.

>>15845226
shit, how many people have discovered this guy? i've tried stringing together bits from >>/lit/thread/S644846#p644886 but i'm not getting anywhere

was the book good?

>>15845251
Think literally about what you’re seeing. Click view same is consistency helps.

>>15845247
is he a novelist or does he write other stuff

>>15845247
They're on amazon. If you actually search some of the things you've only read him discussing it's ez. I've said too much =(

>>15845275
The latter

>>15845280
Like with excerpts? Found a bunch of ________s on YouTube from his more acclaimed work.

do you get the impression that he ever posted about himself here, perhaps in some roundabout way?

>>15845313
He explicitly did back in 2010, read the thread.

>>15845324
explicitly and extensively

>Cormac McCarthy is a regular on r9k

Is this true lol

>>15845324
yeah sorry i’m on a shitty device here, i meant more specifically his published work (what is it anyway, criticism?), not the stray biographical details we all know and love

>>15845396
What are you trying to ask?

>>15845396
It's bullshitty nonsense. You're not missing much. His commentary & brainpickings in the archives are better.

>>15845416
Kind of agree as well. Just goes to show how much you have to clean up your act to make it professionally; really highlights the gap between what turns /lit/ on vs. the publishing industry.

gotta say i'm stumbling over some extremely weird shit in my search. enjoying it though!

Pynchon would be proud of this thread. Buncha Oedipa Masses running around.

can someone just tell me what the whole uk tabloid debacle entailed, that's the bit i've always been curious about

>>15839957
peg it, Meg!

is there a way to backtrace the ip address of old posts? That could give us the answer theoretically

>>15845805
i got my best man on it

bump

>>15845805
We have the answer. All of you are just on Lvl. 2/100 right now. The answer is literally laid out for you in one of the links.

>>15845606
He wrote a slightly controversial thing, got some traction for it, and had at least two major UK newspapers ask him yo comment about it. They’re some of the few links that pertain to him publicly, but I will say it’s harder to find these than it is to use the biographical clues listed in this thread.

does he have a wiki page?

>>15847445
>The answer is literally laid out for you in one of the links.
Wanda Tinasky aka Tom Hawkins faked his death and posts on 4chan occasionally to pretend he's Pynchon/not Pynchon?

>>15843724
Imagine a /lit/ where people actually read books

>>15848645
>he reads books
fag

>prepare for /lit/'s best kept secret to hit normieville any day now.
>/lit/'s best kept secret

Can we stop acting like this website is some big fucking internet secret please. It has like 20 million unique visitors every month.

bump!!!

>>15833170
>Pynchon posting started in '11

The worst part about seeing these elderly threads again is the reminder of how much worse here (and the internet at large) has gotten.

>>15851485
yeah warosu is pretty much the only place i regularly go on for actual you-gotta-read-this recs these days. and one of these days it's gonna dry up or get taken down. feels bad man

>>15851975
I've collected a ton of this guy's old posts from the archive in word docs. Don't worry

>>15852260
Same ;)

Is it Nick Lezard of the Guardian? I googled his name in relation to some of the books in blank and he's written an article about some of them>>15843724

>>15852321
No

>>15852327
yeah whatever you say nick

>>15852344
It’s so obvious once you realize you will realize you a retard. Again, EVERYTHING you need is in this thread, and his name is explicitly stated in one of the links.

can't believe the guy's last name was literally sneed

>>15852358
ok nick

Does Pynchon ever drive a motorcycle?

>>15852462
not after what happened to richard

>>15852477
I don’t know if I’m sure of that, I think he might

>>15852358
maybe don't spoil the mystery

If they want it they can do the puzzle

>>15835420
says a lot about pynchon readers desu

>>15835479
Lol this would upset both of them

>>15833170
wtf is hipinion?
And how do I get in?

>>15837611
How do I get an invite?

>>Not Bill Murray posted things that only somebody who had met Pynchon would know

Go on...

>>15853751
(not true, by the way)

>>not true

Obviously. I wonder why anyone thinks this.

>>15853935
i think it's one of those things that got picked up and started perpetuating itself along the way. half meme half secret wish/belief that le pynchmeister once graced lit with His divine presence (and not just some literal who)

>>15854199
Just to repeat a theory of Lot 49 that's literally laid out in the book word for word & play a joke on posers who didn't read the book all the way through

Gotta say it was a success (^=