Reflections

[Mike Beiderbecke]

on various threads.
You know, when I first read that blurb on Amazon, I figured TRP wrote it.
Compare it to some of his other incidental writings (the review of Love in
the Time of Cholera, the liner notes to Spike Jones and Lotion, the little
thing about Warlock, et cetera) and it is the same voice. Plus, who else
could make a novel sound so pynchonesque in such a short time?
The hardcover and paperback of Gravity's Rainbow were released at the same
time. Some bookstores just took the paperback at 4.95 instead of the
hardback at 15.00.
Galleys (or advance reading copies, or uncorrected proofs, or whatever) are
really marketing tools. They are sent out to buyers from various places (the
chains, the wholesalers, the mass merchants, et cetera) to get a word of
mouth buzz going. That isn't going to help TRP. It will sell enough to hit
the lower end of the best seller list (cf, Vineland, and M&D) for a while
and then fade. He has x amount of fans and he probably isn't going to get
any more. Galleys or no galleys. Plus, they are expensive. They (the
publisher) send the manuscript to the printer, and the printer prints it in
book form and sends the galleys back to the publisher to check for typos and
other problems. That is why there are editors and proofreaders. Although, I
have heard that there were some typos in GR that were not corrected until
the third printing because TRP didn't want to be edited. Apocryphal,
probably. Hello graduate students.
So, tell me what these books are about, knowing only the title and their
previous books:
Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
J.R. by William Gaddis
Rubicon Beach by Steve Erickson
Infinite Jest by davidfostawalla
Ah well, just rambling on a Saturday night listening to the White Sox and
Rangers.

Regards,

Mike

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