VLVL2 (1) warm-up: Dedication

[ck]

> Is there a significance to this dedication?  

It was made, with dedication.  It exists, significantly.

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

Sure, somehow.    I don't think too much about it.

> How does this dedication compare with those Pynchon 
> wrote for GR and M&D?

More words than one and fewer than the other?  (I can't remember the M&D dedication, to be honest.)
 
> How much stock can/should readers put into considering 
> the "dedication" of a novel?

He really, really means it when he says "for."
   
> Are there novels out there in which the dedication has 
> thematic significance to the work itself?

Novels.  How boring.  This means we'll never talk about Shakespeare.

TO.THE.ONLIE.BEGETTER.OF.
THESE.INSUING.SONNETS.
Mr. W.[S]. WISHETH.
THE.WELL-WISHING.
ADVENTURER
ALL.HAPPINESSE.
AND.THAT.ETERNITIE.
PROMISED.
BY.
OUR.EVERLIVING.POET.
IN.
SETTING.
FORTH.

> Are dedications technically part of the "text" proper? 
>  Why or why not?

It's pleasant to think of a dedication as a card on a gift.  Sometimes, though, the card doesn't match the wrapping paper and 
the gift is the wrong size, if you know what I mean, but this is not the fault of the recipient.

I am far (far) from an autograph hound but, once, after a lengthy and interesting conversation with him at a conference, I asked 
Daniel Singer to sign a book of his I'd just bought.  He wrote the shortest, pithiest and profoundest thing somebody could ever 
write--a reiteration of one of the more meaningful chapter headings in his book.  Hard to get the performing seals to top that, 
so I don't try.    This is a little different from what you asked about.

Chris