NPPF - Foreword - Summary / Commentary (3)

[gumbo at fuse.net]

Okay, I guess there are at least two ways to reconstruct how the "Insert before a professional" interjection got in the text.

My first thought was that it was a slightly garbled version of a proofing note to insert the word "professional" before the word "proofreader."

It makes more sense as a note that was set in type by mistake at the bottom of the text insert, which is the preceding sentence: "Frank has acknowledged the safe return..." 

A much neater explanation. The inserted sentence is something that _would_ have to be inserted, the product of a note from the publisher to the editor after a review of the galley proofs.

My take on this is still that it shows there was a process of preparing the manuscript for publication under way. Seems to me the (fictional) typesetter's mistaken inclusion of the instruction is a pretty pointed indication that hands other than Kinbote's were at work on the project. (That is, that the poem and commentary have a reality outside of Kinbote's delusion.)

Don Corathers 


> 
> From: The Great Quail <quail at libyrinth.com>
> Date: 2003/07/14 Mon AM 11:36:04 EDT
> To: The Whole Sick Crew <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Foreword - Summary / Commentary (3)
> 
> > He says the poem has been proofed, if not the
> > commentary. 
> > 
> > And the very next sentence: "insert before a
> > professional."  Followed by "A professional ..."
> 
> Yeah, I find this a very puzzling item, and it seems to be a "clue" to
> *something.* Did the proofreader who looked at the poem also look at the
> foreword, but Kinbote, being rather in a tizzy, failed to note a comment? Or
> is it a note by Kinbote to himself that was accidentally retained?
> 
> --Q
> 
>