Fwd: "Thomas Pynchon said, grandly"

[Mark Kohut]

Bob,
   
  I tend to agree that the 'quote" is just a kind of attributed quote based probably on a conversation the writer had with that named Art Director. 
   
  But Penguin Classics was a new series they launched a few years ago. You will notice GR exists in two paperback versions from Penguin.
   
  MK

bob mccart <lebishar at gmail.com> wrote:
  

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: bob mccart <lebishar at gmail.com>
Date: May 13, 2007 12:04 AM 
Subject: Re: "Thomas Pynchon said, grandly"
To: Daniel Harper <daniel.e.harper at gmail.com>

I was pretty sure the story was that Penguin wanted to issue a new pClassics version of GR, and Pynchon said that was OK as long as Miller did the cover. So wasn't GR already in the pclassics before this. I get the feeling that this 'quote' is really a false general statement with quotes around it.   

  On 5/12/07, Daniel Harper < daniel.e.harper at gmail.com> wrote:      Oh, I love these covers... and never even realized it was all from the same publisher! Silly Daniel.
 

  Comics, of course, are an art of compression. But when
it comes to cover illustration, that compression has
to evoke the larger world of the book. In his design
for Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow," Frank Miller 
— yes, that Frank Miller, creator of "Sin City" and
"The 300" — frames an upended V-2 rocket knifing
downward through a speckled and blackened bomb crater.
Once seen, never forgotten.   

This is the edition that I just bought. And yes, the cover art was part of the reason for my choice of that particular edition. Also great is the use of the inside flaps on the front and back of the book, which include the opening and closing passages of the book. It's a brilliant design. (Love Sin City, too.) 
 

  Likewise, Charles Burns'
jacket for Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel "The Jungle" 
features the flayed head of a cow, its single eye
looking very much alive and reproachful. These images
sock and shock you.  
...much the way the book shocked its original audience. (As a microbiology geek, I can't help but love the microscope slide on the back, either.) 
 

  Other jackets offer a denser and more verbal
experience. Chris Ware's work for "Candide" is so 
typically elliptical that you can spend nearly as much
time with it as with the novel.  
Possibly my all-time favorite cover art. I own the text in a Norton Anthology, but considered buying the book for the cover art alone. 
 
  
Most often the artists are selected by Penguin art
director Paul Buckley, but occasionally authors chose 
for themselves. Thomas Pynchon said, grandly: "Sure,
I'll put 'Gravity's Rainbow' in your series — but you
have to get Frank Miller." Amazingly, they did.  

I can't believe the reticent Pynchon would publicize these kinds of details. Does anyone have a source for that? 
 

<snip rest>

Yeah, this whole thing is a great example of good art being used to heighten the experience of reading the book. So many book covers are dull and lifeless (even those that are attempting to shock), but these Penguin covers are eye-catching and memorable even if you don't know it's all one company. 





       
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