Although Mr. Pynchon apparently eluded those magazine reporters, he had a more difficult time with Dick Schaap, who in 1964 was the city editor of The New York Herald Tribune. Mr. Schaap was writing an article about Mr. Pynchon for Book Week, The Tribune's literary supplement. Mr. Pynchon was furious, assuming that the piece ''will be riddled with the same lies, calumnies and all-around knavish disregard for my privacy'' as previous articles.

When the Herald Tribune article is printed, Mr. Pynchon buys the newspaper in Mexico. It makes him ''sick, almost homicidal,'' especially the comments about a former girlfriend.

In response to Mr. Pynchon's remarks, Mr. Schaap, an author and television commentator, said recently, ''Nothing in my article was intended to be damaging to his life or his work, for which I have total respect.''

In April 1964, Mr. Pynchon tells Ms. Donadio he is facing a creative crisis, with four novels in process. With a sudden bravado, he says, ''If they come out on paper anything like they are inside my head then it will be the literary event of the millennium.'' If so, he wryly suggests that Alfred Knopf and Bennett Cerf will have a duel to see which one will be be his publisher.

After looking back on his difficulties creating his first novel and discussing political problems in the United States, he wonders if there is any validity in writing. That makes him think about other avenues of expression, and he remembers his original desire to study mathematics, a plan that ended when his application to the University of California was rejected. It occurs to him that perhaps writing is all he can do. He asks himself if he is good at it and answers that he does not know.

The next year, he is in the middle of writing a book that he characterizes as a potboiler. When it grows to 155 pages, he calls it ''a short story, but with gland trouble,'' and hopes that his agent ''can unload it on some poor sucker.'' The book turned out to be his highly praised second novel, ''The Crying of Lot 49.''

At various points, he considers selling both ''V'' and ''Lot 49'' to the movies. He reveals himself as an avid moviegoer, offering capsule reviews. When the possibility of writing film criticism for Esquire arises, he says he would love to do it and explains: ''I can be crisp, succinct, iconoclastic, noncoterie, nonprogrammatic . . . also curmudgeonly, insulting, bigoted, psychotic and nitpicking. A boy scout's decade of virtues.''