Tossing horses at the wall to see what pricks

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Doug:
> Certainly, marketing executives and editors at Plume
> have a clear picture of who they expect will buy the
> centennial edition of _1984_, and these expectations
> motivate many of their decisions with regard to the
> book:  cover design, cover price, who to hire to write
> the Foreword, etc. It's a substantial business
> enterprese.  I don't know for sure, but I also expect
> that the editor responsible for giving Pynchon the
> assignment communicated some or all of this
> information to him. 
> 

So what do we know about the whole book deal anyway? Was the idea of having Pynchon write it conceived pre-or post-9/11? You've speculated that the Foreword would have been altogether different had it been written prior to 9/11, but I'm wondering would he would have written it at all prior to 9/11. What do you think?