V--2nd, half-way

[Mark Kohut]

I'm a skeptic too, if Robin is really lasering in on an exact middle page or 
two...
He can make his case and it is a decent one here, perhaps, because this middle
chapter is so key.....it contains many of the themes of V.......

so, if middle means this chapter, I'm a believer........

I, remembering ATD, think TRP has many central concerns in the middle of that.
In fact we might remember when the jacket copy/amazon stuff was out pre-pub, 
there
was some tantalizing stuff about page 666.........

I think many, many pages of Pynchon have resonances that tantalize. it is
why he is like a poet 'all compact everywhere' from one perspective..........So, 
this
numerology works in lots of examples, maybe.

Anyway, TRP could have seen the page layouts with his proof copy. He could have 
asked for 
different type, spacing, etc...to get the finished book to the size he wanted.

But I doubt that he did. Layout seems normal. Type seems normal..

(I was recently holding/reading a hardcover V..which is still on my public 
library's shelves.
I could have checked the pagination.)

 But, assuming no special manipulation, the middle of almost
any edition should be about the same middle. If the edition has more pages, the 
center will move higher by
page number.........Think about it a minute, all you smart plisters:
Like marks on a balloon, there will be the same number and, in percentage terms 
of the surface, roughly the same
space between them. What affects the change of the middle pages/sections from 
edition to edition
is whether there are a lot of chapters or breaks which end on part of a 
page...and where they are...they mean
that the next page must start anew....enough of them early and the center 
changes)


----- Original Message ----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Mon, October 18, 2010 3:43:52 PM
Subject: Re: V--2nd, half-way

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm taking the page count of my copy -- the Harper Perennial Modern Classics 
>edition -- and dividing by two.

At which point you proceed to completely ignore Rich's point:

>> but the original novel was 492 pgs making pg. 246 the middle, no?

Restating the point:  Wouldn't the original page-count be the
"significant" one, assuming the author intended any significance to a
mid-point point?  Obviously he had no way of knowing what future
edition pagination would be, so isn't your mid-point thesis severely
undercut unless you use the first-edition versions of each?  And even
then, there's no way Pynchon could have known how the pagination would
play out, unless he specifically indicated how to lay out the printed
pages.

David Morris