VLVL2 (1) warm-up: Dedication

[Michael Joseph]

easy answers [to] difficult questions (Robert Graves)

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, Tim Strzechowski wrote:

> Is there a significance to this dedication?  Is the significance somehow
> related to the themes of family relationships that are prevalent
> throughout this novel?

I think the relevance is obvious, but I think a line will be drawn between
readers who maintain Pynchon intended its relevance to be accepted by the
reader and those who believe it is coincidental, or a private aside.


How does this dedication compare with those Pynchon wrote for GR and M&D?
>
> In more general, literary terms:
>
> How much stock can/should readers put into considering the "dedication"
> of a novel?
>
The so-called paratextual elements of a text are crucial to some
methodologies, generally those bound up with the history of the book. I'll
be presenting a paper at this year's MLA on graphic novels as a locus of
teenage angst and desire focusing specifically on the book as artifact,
one that subverts the logocentrism of text (blah blah blah), but, I do
think that there is no overall one size fits all value one can/should
place upon the dedication/"dedication": one has to concentrate on where
the author put in his time and work.

> Are there novels out there in which the dedication has thematic
> significance to the work itself?
>
Well, the "d" to _Coconut Oil,_ comes to mind. Written by Corey Ford under
the facetious pseudonym of June Triplett, _Coconut Oil_ is a broadside
directed against a writer who claimed in a best-selling book to have
sailed on some kind of merchant ship, and who followed that by going on
the lecture circuit and detailing her exciting adventures.  Ford
discovered that she had really been matriculating in some Northeastern
college for young ladies at the time, and outted her in _Coconut Oil,_
whose dedication reads "To Corey Ford who helped me by writing this book."

Best,

Michael