The New York Times Book Review recently published a lengthy article about Thomas Pynchon, the renowned literary genius who penned novels such as Gravity’s Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49 and Inherent Vice. Also Vineland, which inspired Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film One Battle After Another.
For the piece, the Times asked a number of artists to comment on Pynchon’s work, including Don DeLillo, the author of White Noise, Rachel Kushner, the author of The Mars Room, and Homer Simpson, the author of Homer, I Hardly Knew Me.
Yes, the paper actually published the contributions of Homer and his daughter Lisa, which were provided by Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman. Unfortunately, it turns out that Homer never actually read Gravity’s Rainbow. “Sweetie, I really wanted to read it,” Homer told Lisa. “But you know I don’t like to read. My eyes get so tired going right, right, right, then, ugh… left.” He also admitted that he assumed, based on the title, that the book “would be about Skittles.”
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Lisa then revealed that she got her dad a pop-up version of the nearly 800-page book. “Sorry, pop-up books are way too hard,” Homer responded. “If something’s going to pop up at me it better be from a toaster. Plus you have to figure out how to get the pages to lie back down flat again. I’m no engineer.”
“I thought you were a nuclear engineer,” Lisa countered.
“That’s more about pushing buttons,” Homer explained. “Or not pushing buttons. I can’t remember which.”
Lisa did get to add that if she were asked to share her favorite passage from the acclaimed 1973 novel, “it would have to be this quote about power in America: ‘All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few.’”
Homer then questioned whether or not Pynchon knows what green Skittles taste like.
Publishing Homer and Lisa’s opinions on Pynchon actually makes a lot of sense, considering that the famously reclusive author actually guest starred on the show multiple times. In Season 15’s “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife.” Pynchon, who has been photographed very rarely throughout his career, briefly shows up with a question mark-branded bag over his head and an illuminated sign calling attention to his home, urging the public to “come on in.”
The author, whose son is reportedly a big fan of The Simpsons, popped up again in Season 16’s “All’s Love in Oven War.” Selman later revealed that the National Book Award winner actually wrote some of the dialogue himself, even sending the show’s writers handwritten edits to the script.
Lazy old John Updike probably didn’t write a single joke for his episode.
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