Book Description

[Tore Rye Andersen]

>On Sep 24, 2006, at 7:57 PM, pynchonoid wrote:
>
>Way back when, I heard a rumor that Pynchon was
>talking with a US publication about an interview
>article around the time Mason & Dixon was published
>but decided not to go through with it.
>
>I still wouldn't be surprised to see him do something
>like that with the publication of Against the Day,
>given the way he's already been out there with the
>Book Description, and the milestone this represents in
>his career.

The way in which the Book Description was presented to the public was 
certainly a milestone (posted on the Internet, signed by Pynchon, etc.), but 
I suspect that Pynchon has previously tried his hand in this genre: The 
description of M&D (which was also made public in a press release from Henry 
Holt prior to the publication of the book itself) certainly also seems to be 
the work of Pynchon himself. If you compare the description of AtD with the 
description of M&D (which you can find on the dustjacket of the first 
edition), I think you'll find many stylistic similarities, and I think it 
highly likely that the description of M&D is penned by Pynchon.
Based on different informations and rumours over the years, it seems as 
though Pynchon takes great interest in the way his books are presented to 
the public, and the book description on the dustjacket is certainly a very 
important part of this process. This description will often determine how 
some of the more lazy reviewers describe the book, and these reviews will in 
their turn often channel many readers' reception of the novel into certain 
tracks. The book description, though not properly a part of the text as 
such, in effect constitutes a sort of preinterpretation of the novel, a kind 
of sanctioned portal into the text, and the focus points of the book 
description surprisingly often become focus points in book reviews as well. 
(If you're at all interested in these matters - as I clearly am - Gerard 
Genettes discussion of what he calls 'paratextual' matters is very 
valuable).