Without question, the Thomas Pynchon character that most persistently arouses reader fascination is Pynchon himself. Already, we are seeing reports that Pynchon makes a brief cameo appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of his 2009 mystery novel (for lack of a more precise term) and attended the New York Film Festival’s press screening. Of course, it is difficult to verify any of that, since nobody knows what he looks like.