NPPF - Foreword - Summary / Commentary (3)

[jbor]

on 15/7/03 11:18 AM, Don Corathers wrote:

> The Vintage reads the same way.
> 
> I don't think it would be that unusual to hear "galleys [that] I had been
> sent here" in conversational speech, but yes, it is an odd and awkward
> construction for a writer as careful as Kinbote.

Yes, I agree on both points, and it supports the notion that Kinbote was in
a bit of a rush to get the thing to press.

> Re the sequence of events with the proof and corrections: James Kyllo (I
> think) observed earlier today that it would be impossible for Kinbote to
> have made a note on the proof in response to the publisher's request if the
> request came in the same communication from Frank as the acknowledgement
> that the proof had been returned.

Yes. I think the idea of a separate note from Kinbote, maybe a telegram,
with the extra sentence and instruction, after Frank's acknowledgement and
request, is logical. Though, there is the dilemma of how the printer knew
where to insert the sentence if he missed the fact that the instruction was
an instruction about where to insert it.

best

> Which is certainly true. It is possible,
> though, that there was more than one iteration of proof cycling between New
> York and Utana. (On the magazine I work for, it usually takes us about five
> sets of proof to get an article from edited manuscript to finished layout.)
> Or that the poem, commentary, and foreword were galleyed separately. Or,
> perhaps most probable, that Kinbote didn't write the instruction on the
> proof itself but sent it in a separate note, which would explain why he had
> to write out the instruction for its placement instead of indicating the
> position by drawing a line, as one would do when marking up a galley.
>