Description:

Imagine Stuart Gilbert, Gertrude Stein, Hugh Kenner, Edmund Wilson, and a host of lesser lights chatting about the Aeolus chapter of Joyce's Ulysses on the Internet. Siegel attended Cornell with Thomas Pynchon; before he moved to Mexico in the early '70s, he was a successful freelance writer, authoring four books and many magazine articles; most relevantly, a 1977 Playboy article titled "Who Is Thomas Pynchon . . . and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?" [included in full] Siegel outlines his own history and the Internet's history (for unconnected readers), then explains his discovery that, on the Net, "I am a sub-set of the Thomas Pynchon industry," and gathers dozens of conversations and controversies within that "industry" in which he--and, ultimately, the Siegel ex-wife with whom Pynchon "took off"--participated. So Lineland at once adds facts and commentary to the sparse information about the reclusive Pynchon and demonstrates "virtual community" in action. --Mary Carroll, Booklist