Let me say first that I'm honored to be placed among the company of your other interviewees, but I'm not at all sure I belong here. I see myself more as facilitating other scholars' work than as making substantive contributions of my own. Still, I'll answer your questions as well as I can.
1. Mr. Krafft, please tell us about your academic background.
I did my undergraduate work at Miami University, where I teach now. This is where I read Gravity's Rainbow when it was first published, and that experience set the course for the rest of my academic life. I was something of a slow learner, though: I received my MA and PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where I wrote a now best-forgotten dissertation on Pynchon.
2. How has the European scene, where you recently taught as a Fulbright professor, been influencing you in your academic life? Has it at all?
The Uni-Koeln scene was inspiring! Maybe I'm naive about German higher education, but I had the distinct impression when I was there that university students in Germany were much more interested in academic life and in education for its own sake than many American students are. Many of my students here are out of their depth intellectually, and don't care about learning--only about degrees and careers. In fact, students have told me they didn't want to learn anything, but just wanted a job. I shouldn't underestimate the anxiety and frustration some German students must feel; but I sensed that students in Germany were likelier to spend as many years as possible at university, not try to get through as quickly and with as little effort as possible. Unfortunately (at least for my fantasy view of German education), it seems as if Germany has undertaken reforms that will recast higher education there in something more like the US mold. Too bad!
3. You are one of the editors of Pynchon Notes, a journal dedicated to studies of Thomas Pynchon's works. How did this all start?
Khachig T”l”lyan had organized three Pynchon panels at national conferences in the mid-1970s, which gave him a certain centrality and visibility. That is, in those days just about everyone with information about Pynchon seemed to tell it to Kach, and anyone who wanted information asked him. He had put together a mailing list of those then relatively rare people who were intensely interested in Pynchon's work, and he proposed in 1979 to circulate news to them a couple of times a year. I offered to supplement that news with the latest bibliographic information, and that's how PN got started--as a newsletter. We probably would have been content to maintain it as a simple newsletter, but people started sending us notes, essays, and encouragement, and so PN began to evolve.
4. Thomas Pynchon is known to be very shy. Do you stand in contact with him? If yes, what does he think of the journal and the texts about his work?
No. We send him the journal (by way of his agent), and I heard through the grapevine some years ago that he read it. But I wouldn't dare presume his interest or appreciation. After all, he's in the best position to see the flaws in what we publish.
5. Pynchon has published five books and several short stories and has reached cult status with his works. What do you think is the key to his success?
I'd like to distance myself from the notion of Pynchon's cult status. My own interest is far from merely dry-as-dust scholarly, but I'm not a cultist, and I've never wanted to be identified as a "fan." So I'll dodge your question and say simply (and very briefly) that among the attractions of Pynchon's fiction for me are his extraordinary resourcefulness and versatility with language, the ways he imagines or reimagines history, and the ways he challenges readers to think about what it means to think historically. Pynchon is also very funny.
6. Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon's major work and considered a hard read, divides its readers in two groups: either you hate it or you love it. What are the arguments on either side?
I can't begin to answer that adequately: it's a huge question.
The end of my previous answer gestures in the direction of why people admire Gravity's Rainbow. As for why some hate it: it's long, and complex, and confusing, and difficult, and sometimes crude, and doesn't have a happy ending; and some readers just don't know a good thing when they see it.
7. Some researchers compare GR to hypertext in regards to aspects of non-linearity and cross-referencing. Can you explain this connection?
Not very well. I can appreciate such comparisons when they're done skillfully, but that's not where I live. And I think some people make the comparison far too glibly because it seems hip.
8. Among these researchers or critics is Stuart Moulthrop, a renowned writer of hyperfiction and webmaster of 'hyperbola'.
Do you think the reading of Pynchon is in one way or another influential for hyperfiction authors, either as far as the topics and themes are concerned, or with regard to the specific hypertextual writing techniques?
Not being a creative person myself, I have to take their word for it. The fact that Stuart finds inspiration in Pynchon tells me something about both of them I wouldn't have understood otherwise.
9. What do you assume will be the future course in Pynchon studies, after the poststructuralist turn and the cross-readings with the hypertext format in the 1990s and the more recent approaches by such scholars as Dana Medoro, Galena Eduardova o-or Eleonora Lacorte?
I would rather keep an open mind than try to predict. As far as I may have any role, I'll encourage and guide, not push, whatever seems to me to be the best of what comes along. But I assume we'll be seeing an even greater proportion of interdisciplinary work.
10. What are your future plans for Pynchon Notes?
We have two special issues of conference proceedings in the pipeline, and a great many essays for general issues. We are woefully far behind in our publishing schedule, so I hope we can catch up, at least a little, rather than fall any further behind.
