GRGR(0): published editions, covers

[Curt Gardner]

Chris sez:
>     I have the Viking Penguin paperback, published 1987.  Background is 
>     orange and yellow (which is either the bright, glowing sun that veg 
>     mentioned, or an exploding rocket flash, depending on the mood I'm 
>     in), over a delicately-drawn London cityscape, in black, which runs 
>     along the bottom of the entire book.

This sounds like a description of the dust jacket of the original 
hardcover in the U.S.  Notable, I thought, for the extremely minimal dust 
jacket flap copy.  On the inside front cover, merely "A screaming comes 
across the sky...." and on the back inside cover, "Thomas Pynchon is the 
author of V. and The Crying of Lot 49."  I believe the published price 
was $15.00.

A note on GRGR(1):
Perhaps quite obvious, but as I re-read the first section, I noted the 
wonderful symmetry to the final page of the book.  After seeing the 
rocket launch, Pirate is thinking, "What if it should hit exactly--ahh, 
no--for a split second you'd have to feel the very point, with terrible 
mass above, strike the top of the skull...."  But rather than dwell on 
the possibilities, "Pirate hunches his shoulders, bearing his bananas 
down the corkscrew ladder."  The bananas, to me, are rich, pungent 
affirmations of life.

On the final page of the book, the Rocket is in its descent.  "And it is 
just here, just at this dark and silent frame, that the pointed tip of the 
Rocket, falling nearly a mile per second, absolutely and forever without 
sound, reaches its last unmeasurable gap above the roof of the old 
theatre, the last delta-t."  What are we movie-watchers to do?

Sorry if I gave away the ending :) 

Curt Gardner
gardner at haas.berkeley.edu