My Favorite Paranoiac Is Back!

There's been a little Thomas Pynchon renaissance here in Britain this week. First there was the belated release down in London, to ho-hum reviews, of the documentary Thomas Pynchon: A Journey Into the Mind. And then in today's Guardian there's the very fine reprint of Pynchon's introduction to the new Penguin edition of George Orwell's 1984. Most people won't have much of a chance, or perhaps even the inclination, to see the documentary; but you've really now no excuse not to read the latter. If you're anything like me, it might even make you want to revisit 1984 -- hmm, in times like these, it might not be a bad idea to do so anyway.