frugality, royalties, etc.

[Vaska Tumir]

> I have a rather prosaic question about Pynchon.  How did he support
>himself in the years prior to the publication of GR?  I can't imagine that
>V or The Crying of Lot 49 or the stories earned him enough to support him
>during the first 15 years of his career.

And, from Jules:

>He was always quite frugal. I believe all of is books have been
>reprinted many times in a number of languages. I think he would have
>been able to live adequately on his royalties.

I don't have the relevant stuff on or near me, but I remember some years ago
looking into the number of editions and reprints of _V_ and _Lot 49_. The
figures were fairly staggering: if my memory serves me at all accurately,
_V_ had had over 18 printing runs (in just one of the ditions) well before
1973.  Pynchon's reputation as a heavy-weight was pretty firmly established
with the publication of _V_, which brought him almost immediate
international attention.  I imagine that his royalties on the first two
novels must have been adequate to substantial in 1960s terms.

Also (sorry to go on at this length), somebody asked Chrissie to identify
some of the characters based on Pynchon's friends.  I always thought that
the Roger-Jessica-Jeremy triangle was a major piece of fictionalized
autobiogrpahy on Pynchon's part, a hunch confirmed (for me, at least) when I
read Jules' Playboy article sometime in the mid '80s.  The same
triangle-motif reappers in _Vineland_, another carry-over bit from _GR_.

Nice web-site, Jules.

Vaska Andjelkovic
vaska at geocities.com