Los premios y Pynchon.

No podemos seguir hablando de los premios de Pynchon, sin mencionar al Profesor Irwin Corey. Él fue el encargado de recoger el National Book Award para El Arco Iris de Gravedad. Un brillante día de abril de 1974, el histrión Corey, se subió al escenario del Lincoln Center en Nueva York para aceptar el premio en nombre de Pynchon. Ante un público atónito, soltó un largo discurso propio de un fool de Shakespeare. Allá va el comienzo:

However…I accept this financial stipulation – ah – stipend in behalf of Richard Python for the great contribution which to quote from some of the missiles which he has contributed… Today we must all be aware that protocol takes precedence over procedure. However you say –what the– what does this mean… in relation to the tabulation whereby we must once again realize that the great fiction story is now being rehearsed before our very eyes, in the Nixon administration… indicating that only an American writer can receive… the award for fiction, unlike Solzinitski whose fiction does not hold water. Comrades – friends, we are gathered here not only to accept in behalf of one recluse – one who has found that the world in itself which seems to be a time not of the toad – to quote Studs Turkal. And many people ask “Who are Studs Turkal?” It’s not “Who are Studs Turkal?” it’s “Who am Studs Turkal?” This in itself is an edifice of the great glory that has gone beyond, and the intuitive feeling of the American people, based on the assumption that the intelligence not only as Mencken once said, “He who underestimates the American pubic – public, will not go broke.”