Pynchon & Coulter

Two names pynchonoid wasn't expecting to hear together (given Pynchon's scorn for the Bush Administration in his post-9-11 Playboy Japan interview and in his introduction for a recent edition of George Orwell's 1984), but there they are, in the context of a Mock Election 2004 debate between right-winger, National Review editor Rich Lowry and left-leaning The Nation editor David Corn, at Pynchon's alma mater:

Referring to conservative Cornellians (Wolfowitz is a 1965 Cornell graduate in mathematics), Corn showed his familiarity with university alumni when he said: "I was accepted at Cornell and nearly attended. Thank you for giving us both Thomas Pynchon and Ann Coulter." (Columnist Coulter, a 1984 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences, was a founder of the conservative student paper, the Cornell Review. Noted and reclusive author Pynchon, a 1958 graduate, hasn't written for either Review, although he did work briefly as a technical writer for the military aircraft company Boeing.)

Given the way Pynchon depicts Reagan's 1984 America as a country either in the neofascist twilight or already consumed by neofascist night in Vineland, it's debatable that he merits the "conservative" label.