Book Description

[pynchonoid]

Some reviewers are going to need help.  One version of
the M&D ARC has that description printed on the back
cover, a reviewer wouldn't even have to open the book
to get the gist.

By now, I'd think there must be copies of Against the
Day in reviewers' hands, for print publication reviews
at least, but no news of them yet that I've heard.  


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


For good or ill, I guess, setting up a situation where
some readers will judge the book by the cover. ;)

A reader who objects to Pynchon's use of talking dogs,
for example, could be deterred by a Book Description
that mentions same in the next novel, or if the BD is
written in the same style as the BD of the previous
novel which the reader didn't like. Part of the
point-of-purchase marketing and branding process, in
addition to any other functions the cover might serve.


> (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).
> 


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