M&D and Journalism

[Bruce Appelbaum]

     Yeah, accurate, but mean-spirited.
     
     Re the M&D website -- not only is it nothing spectacular, but the 
     owners don't seem to keep it up.  After all the hoopla, it still lists 
     the same three or four "events" and nothing much else seems to be 
     planned.  I guess a $200K promotion budget doesn't go as far as it 
     used to.  
     
     As to who's reading it, lots of libraries will purchase it and lot of 
     people will have access to it that way.  There is of course a 
     difference between sales and readership (circulation).
     
     On an aside, davemarc mentioned that there were some radio 
     commercials.  I haven't heard them -- any details?


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: M&D and Journalism
Author:  "davemarc" <davemarc at panix.com> at Internet
Date:    6/4/97 12:20 AM


Ever since posting to the effect that the NY Observer article was sorta 
accurate, I've been a-thinking and a-thinking about it.  And I thought some 
more about that London article, and about those reviews we've been reading.
     
Now, I still like a lot of the NY Observer article.  Somewhere in there are 
some facts and research--I'm sure of it.  But yes, it's full of weird 
assertions and strange claims.  We've all seen the Holt website, right?  I 
think the article makes it seem as if it was some kind of brilliant pr coup. 
 But really, folks--we know that it was nothing more than serviceable, 
right?  And that brilliant pr campaign to stir up public interest?  The 
reporter mentioned every little bookstore functionon the website (what, were 
there four of them?), a radio ad, some unsubstantiated mumbo-jumbo about 
getting the public to think the book would be scarce....That's it?  I 
suggest that it doesn't take a pr genius to figure out that Pynchon fans 
would by the book, and the point would be to get the fence-sitters to buy 
it....
     
The article looks to me like it's actually a pr coup for the pr department 
of Holt, making it look a lot cleverer than it really was in this case. 
Now, I think there's a story in how the department contended with P's 
peculiarities without screwing up royally--I think the department did a 
fine job--but I think that the Observer story hyped the department quite a 
bit.
     
And as for how fashionable M&D is...there's probably some truth to that, 
but I wonder where *the evidence* is.  Maybe I don't get out enough, but I 
still haven't seen anyone but p-listers carrying the tome around.  So 
again, I think there's hype here.
     
As for the reviews, I sympathize with journalists who seem to have been 
driven to distraction by having to read the book on a tight deadline.  But 
I'm disappointed at how many of these "literati" feel it necessary to call 
Pynchon appreciators "nuts" and whine away about the complexity and bulk of 
his writing--as if typical readers don't have the freedom to take their 
time reading the book, treating it as an aesthetic object rather than 773 
pages that have to be read and reviewed by Date X.  The critics are 
entitled to their opinions, of course; I'm just a little surprised at how 
philistine, narrow, and unimaginative (not to mention redundant) they end 
up sounding.
     
At the bottom of my own whine-glass,  
     
davemarc