Interesting Connection

The next book that I am going to read is The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Before reading it though, i wanted to check out the author a bit. i read what i could on him and one thing jumped out. in one of his letters to his agent he talks about working on three or four novels at the same time and that if they come out at all like what they are in his head, it will be the literary event of the millenium. This jumped out at me because a nearly identical conversation takes place in Joh Irving's The World According to Garp. That book is about an author who discusses with his publisher the next three books he will work on simultaneously and that if he finishes them like he imagines them it will be quite the literary event. I am paraphrasing here because i dont have garp with me. This isnt a subtle reference either, Garp was published in 1978. Pynchon's letter, while written well before 1978, was not made public until well after that. I don't know if there is a connection between Pynchon and Irving that this exchange would help prove, but it is an ineresting little theory, at least to me.