"walking" or "waking"

[davemarc]

I wonder if Morty's checked out a recent edition.  I don't know how many
changes have been made over the years (does anyone out there know?) but it
might be worth a look.

davemarc 

----------
> From: Morty Schiff <SCHIFF at POSTBOX.CSI.CUNY.EDU>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: "walking" or "waking"
> Date: Thursday, August 07, 1997 4:05 PM
> 
>                    WAKING DELIBERATELY -- WITH A STRIDE
>                    
> I've a fairly simple query regarding a particular word in the 
> following passage from _Gravity's Rainbow_ -- it's on page 107 of the 
> Viking (Penguin) edition.
>        
>         But now and then, players in a game will, lull or crisis, be 
>         reminded how it is, after all, really play -- and be unable 
>         then to continue in the same spirit... Nor need it be 
>         anything sudden, spectacular -- it may come in gentle -- and 
>         regardless of the score, the number of watchers, their 
>         collective wish, penalties they or the Leagues may impose, 
>         the player will, _waking_ deliberately, perhaps with Katje's 
>         own tough, young isolate's shrug and stride, say "fuck 
>         it," and quit the game, quit it cold... 
>       
> I've underlined the word "waking" because a while back a friend sent 
> me a letter quoting the passage, and he either presciently or 
> mistakenly wrote "walking" for "waking". Presciently, I would think, 
> since "walking" seems so much more vivid, more apt, more patently 
> correct than "waking": the near apposition with "stride", the 
> qualifier "deliberately" (how do you wake deliberately?), and the 
> contextual image itself -- the athlete "walking" off the playing 
> field, as Pynchon beautifully puts it, regardless.... And yet every 
> other edition of _GR_ I've been able to check has "waking", and as 
> far as I know the question, in the twenty odd years since the novel 
> appeared, has not received any published comment at all. Curious.  
> Moreover two informed Pynchonites whom I was able to talk to had not 
> been aware of any possible problem in the text until I brought it to 
> their attention.  I also checked with Weisenburger's book, in which 
> other _GR_ typos are listed, and found no reference to the matter 
> either.  Then, last winter I sent a letter to Thomas Pynchon about 
> the passage, but I haven't received a reply.    
> 
> In these circumstances I'm turning to interested Pynchon students -- 
> Is it "waking" or "walking" ? I'm eager for your comments, and will 
> try to write a piece based on replies received.
> 
> Thanks for your attention. 
> Morty Schiff
> Schiff at postbox.csi.cuny.edu                        
>               
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