ATD Where is Pynchon's editor?

[Jim Gilbert]

There are content editors, copy editors and (in a perfect world) proof
editors. Then, there are the beleaguered of us who must be all three. But...
I know from attending the SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Assoc)
convention the first week of September and speaking with a rep from
Pearson/Penguin (to beg for an advance copy, of course), that at that time,
Pynchon had not even turned in his first galley revisions. The sales group
was viewing the entire enterprise with a certain amount of ambivalence,
since they were told to construct no marketing plan--author's orders. The
only promo material they had was a simple, 11x15 foamcore-backed poster of
the cover (which I stole at the end of the trade show). So really, while I'm
sure this wasn't a rush job for Pynchon, I think it was a rush job in terms
of putting the book into production. I know all too well how tiny and stupid
errors sneak into transferred production files, and proof editors likely had
only a limited time with this book. Maybe the typos will be corrected in the
paperback.

But I agree--the odd constructions and repetitions are intentional.

--Gilbert

Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:41:47 -0800 (PST)
From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: ATD Where is Pynchon's editor?

At least two kinds of editors, in my experience.  One
kind starts marking up copy without having read the
whole thing.  The other kind reads through it and
takes care to try to understand what the writer was
after, then makes suggestions for revisions.  I much
prefer working with the latter.  Fewer occasions to
have to put stuff back in  that an over-hasty editor
might have cut out before reading the whole piece,
less need to explain things that  may be self-evident
later on, & etc.
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