Editing Pynchon?

[Mark Kohut]

Pynchon does have someone at Penguin who is his "editor". Friends have emailed him  with a question or three. One was about his voice on the video.

He does not respond and only he knows what "editing' Pynchon these days means. 

--- On Fri, 8/7/09, Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: Editing Pynchon?
> To: hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi, pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Friday, August 7, 2009, 4:50 AM
> 
> John Krafft and Luc Herman's 'Fast Learner' is a great
> article, and illuminates a lot of the areas touched on in
> this thread.
> 
> 
> But as Heikki makes clear, below, the 'editing' really
> consisted of suggestions to Pynchon as to which sections of
> the book (i.e. 'V.') needed revision, or excising, or even
> shuffling. There was a suggestion at one stage that
> McClintic Sphere should be removed entirely but Pynchon
> insisted on keeping him in.
> 
> 
> The point being, nobody took Pynchon's manuscript and,
> humming gently to themselves, went about snipping it here
> and there, trimming and changing it, rearranging sections,
> paraphrasing him, etc. That level of editing did not occur.
> Suggestions were made to him, he asked for advice here and
> there, but the final decision was, as far as I can make out,
> always his. And this was his first novel; the chances of
> someone 'heavily' editing a subsequent one would surely have
> been reduced further? 
> 
> 
> We don't know whether Pynchon has an editor these days, we
> don't know anything about those details. BUt any suggestions
> that he needs an editor in the sense of someone who can cut
> whole sections out of ATD, is just bizarre. People keep
> saying '*if* a structure exists', but the simple fact that
> we don't know what (or how many) hidden structures are
> lurking in there, means taking the discussion any further
> towards specifics such as which sections to cut, can only be
> hypothetical at best.
> 
> 
> The next stage is to say, ok, we don't mean that sort of
> editing, we're not suggesting that, what we mean is that
> Pynchon needs an editor who can *advise* him on what
> sections (or narrative threads) he might cut, those which
> seem most obviously superfluous, or which most noticeably
> bog the narrative down. BUt even then, how many times could
> an editor make such a suggestion, and be met with 'but I
> have structural or thematic - or even aesthetic - reasons
> not to cut that bit...', before they gave up making such
> suggestions?
> 
> 
> We risk accusations of straying into 'fanboy' territory if
> we regard Pynchon as so infallible as to be above editorial
> advice, but I'd very much prefer to err, heavily, on that
> side, than to suggest that a book like ATD 'needed editing'.
> It's fine as it is. It has it's baggiest of baggy parts,
> it's tight, crystalline perfection parts, it's a vast
> intellectual and artistic banquet from which we are invited
> to select our most enjoyable flavours.
> 
> 
> Finally, think of this: who here would opt to read a
> Pynchon novel in abridged form, if such an edition was
> produced? 
> 
> Right, I need a coffee now
> 
> J
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> >
> > Whereas both articles by Luc Herman and John Krafft
> tell a wonderful
> > story of revising and editing - chiefly by Pynchon
> himself, with Cork
> > Smith as a very competent sparring partner.
> >
> > As Luc and John write: "[I]t is already abundantly
> clear that Pynchon
> > mastered the art of novel writing at tremendous speed
> - between the
> > summer of 1961 and the spring of 1962, with only a few
> suggestions from
> > his editor to give him direction. Contrary to what he
> says (perhaps with
> > a little false modesty) in the introduction to _Slow
> Learner_ about his
> > sluggish development as a short-story writer, Pynchon
> was certainly a
> > fast learner when it came to the novel."
> > "Fast Learner: The Typescript of Pynchon's _V._ at the
> Harry Ransom
> > Center in Austin" Texas Studies in Literature and
> Language, Vol. 49,
> > No. 1, Spring 2007. P. 18
> >
> >
> > Heikki
> >
> 
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