An obvious nod

[pynchonoid]

I ordered a copy of the British edition.

The American editor sounds rather insensitive, to say
the least.  

I have had the impression at times that fiction
doesn't get much editing prior to publication in the
US, that the publishing houses have cut back on
expenses to the point that authors are expected to
turn in copy that's more or less ready for the
printer, but maybe it's not that bad, maybe they still
are paying editors to do this sort of thing, which
sounds, unfortunately, like butchery in this case. 
Or, maybe what I heard is the case for first fiction
from unpublished writers, that it has to be pretty
much ready to publish because they won't spend on more
editing.


--- Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >
> 
> The American publishers cut about 60 pages of the
> British edition. David 
> Streitfeld reported in The Washington Post that
> Norfolk's American editor 
> didn't like the novel's more supernatural elements -
> or at least felt that 
> American readers wouldn't appreciate them - so those
> parts of the novel were 
> simply cut away. The cuts were quite inexpertly done
> and have resulted in 
> numerous inconsistencies - characters in the
> American edition react in 
> strange ways which are frankly inexplicable unless
> you have the British 
> edition, etc. etc.
> I've had the pleasure of meeting Lawrence Norfolk on
> a couple of occasions. 
> In interviews from around the time the American
> edition was published 
> Norfolk diplomatically said that he liked the
> "faster pace" of the American 
> edition, but over a few beers had said to me that he
> "fucking hated" them 
> and that he considered having the American version
> pulled entirely from the 
> market.
> And one can certainly sympathize: the British
> edition is vastly superior to 
> the bowdlerized American version - still, the Danish
> publishers of the novel 
> stupidly chose to have the American version
> translated.
> 
> 

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