[Bulk] Pynchon, books and readers

Fri Jun 22 10:40:18 CDT 2012

On 6/22/2012 6:30 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Laudably clear and laudable work.
> I am old enough and did get led to TRPs work before it was (much) in 
> syllabi...Tracing the literary magazine
> interest in him in the sixties would illumine one major way his 
> readership built.....

Thanks, Matthew and for the concurrence of Mark.  A very interesting 
project.

Count me as never having set foot inside no English Department or 
nothing like that. In the early days I would just pick up old paperbacks 
lying around the house for my reading material and V. and Lot 49 
happened to be so included.  But I quickly forgot about the Pyncher.  
Did meet some of his Cornell classmates who sort of knew him at a late 
60s or early 70s party, but wasn't exactly avidly awaiting the arrival 
of GR.  But the book reviews got me interested again and the rest is, 
well, not exactly history, but something.

P

PS I'm sure you'll consider Gore Vidal's famous essay Plastic Fiction in 
your study.

>
> *From:* Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
> *To:* "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 21, 2012 11:16 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Bulk] Pynchon, books and readers
>
> First, thanks for the responses. I'm a bit tardy to respond given that 
> at midlife I've just now contracted chickenpox; it sucks. So I'll try 
> for a brief response.
>
> Before anything else I should say that Adam Roberts book is good in 
> many ways, I just happen to disagree with his treatment of TP. (Mark, 
> I understand your irritation at his use of the word "obscene". They 
> said that about Joyce, too.) Roberts' book has added some things to my 
> reading list at the very least.
>
> When Roberts treats TP's book sales as driven by university syllabi, 
> he is calling TP a 'writers writer', ya know, someone who writes books 
> that are only consumed by students and professors of literature or the 
> aspiring writers of the world. I suspect this is well off the mark. 
> Part of my irritation is that he presents this view without evidence. 
> I mentioned that I want to address this in my work and some expressed 
> interest. I'll save you all the blah-blah and try to make this short.
>
> One way to confirm Tp's presence in university syllabi is to find out 
> what universities have courses that involve TP's work, how often those 
> classes are offered, and what or how many of TP's texts are used. I 
> reckon most places do not have a John Krafft with his admirable course 
> (had I only know of it years before...). I also suspect that CoL49 is 
> more often on class reading lists than GR. I don't plan to contact 
> every university to find out, just enough to get a fair idea.
>
> (Sidenote: I believe Martin Eve from Sussex did something interesting 
> by showing the growth in PhD's involving TP in Britain. It's the kind 
> of thing that intersts me.)
>
> The more daunting task is to find out more about the readership; I am 
> working on a couple of surveys to achieve this. One will be for the 
> P-list but I suspect that more than a couple of p-listers came to TP 
> through uni course work in the humanities. My real interest is in the 
> TP readership that did not come to him through studies of literature, 
> people like our house physicist (unless there is another) Mr. Prashant 
> Kumar. The task is daunting in that I realise how difficult it might 
> be to reach people and get enough respondants to make it worthwhile, 
> afterall a study is only as good as the size of its sample.
>
> There are a multitude of readings of TP's work that are very 
> insightful and much of the study has rendered useful information e.g. 
> about the Kenosha Kid. But as far as I know there is little 
> information (if you know of any let me know) about TP's work and the 
> place it has in U.S society and culture. I say U.S because I am aware 
> that my study will be limited to the U.S even though TP has been 
> important for writers and thinkers in many different places e.g. 
> Elfriede Jelinek.
>
> In other words, I want to plot TP's trajectory through U.S social 
> space and triangulate his position. I hope that gives an idea of what 
> I'm working on. If it's not clear I'll blame it on the fever and lack 
> of sleep.
>
> ciao 4 now
> mc otis
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Beshear <tbeshear at att.net <mailto:tbeshear at att.net>>
> To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es <mailto:macissell at yahoo.es>>; 
> pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 5:42 PM
> Subject: Re: [Bulk] Pynchon, books and readers
>
> Adam Roberts is a British SF writer of some distinction, tho' even he 
> can have loopy opinions, i.e., that GR couldn't have enjoyed  popular 
> success --  we know that in the '70s the Bantam paperback told close 
> to a million copies, on top of a lot of trade paperbacks from the 
> original publisher. Perhaps it didn't sell nearly as well in the UK, 
> which might color Roberts' opinion.
>
> As for whether GR is SF, well, it was a finalist for the SF Writers of 
> America's Nebula Award (won instead that year by Arthur C. Clarke's 
> retrograde Rendezvous with Rama). The early 1970s fell during the last 
> years of the New Wave in science fiction, a movement that saw a 
> loosening of subject matter (sexanddrugsandrocknroll), a political 
> liberalization, and a focus on stylistic experiments that rejected 
> SF's use of transparent style (i.e. writing that doesn't call 
> attention to itself). GR would fit comfortably on a shelf of books 
> like Dhalgren, Crash, Stand on Zanzibar and The Female Man, let alone 
> Harlan Ellison's short stories or works like Pamela Zoline's "The Heat 
> Death of the Universe." GR may not look like SF now to a lot of people 
> who learned about SF post-Star Wars (gadgets, anyone?), which set the 
> commercial writing genre back decades, but it looks like SF of the time.
>
>
> But at any rate, if Roberts says it's SF, it's
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Cissell" 
> <macissell at yahoo.es <mailto:macissell at yahoo.es>>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 10:01 AM
> Subject: [Bulk] Pynchon, books and readers
>
>
> Hey P-listers
>
> Forgive me if this has come up before. Are many of you familiar with 
> "The History of Science Fiction" by Adam Roberts? Its one of the books 
> I'm chipping away at. In chapter 13, Prose Science Fiction 1970's - 
> 1990's, he gets around to TP. First, he writes that GR, "has a 
> plausible claim to be the greatest SF novel of the 1970's." Granted, 
> Roberts does have a very wide definition of SF, but how many of you 
> would call it SF?
>
> Second, and this is where he really got my attention, he writes of GR 
> that "it is too long, too complex, rebarbative and obscene ever to 
> have enjoyed popular success (that it is still in print today is 
> almost cetainly because universities require their students to buy it)."
>
> The last bit is so speculative it hurts. Does he have any numbers 
> about book sales or university courses? This is the kind of unfounded 
> claim that I address in my ongoing work. I think one would find that 
> CoL49 is more often included in sylabi at universities.
>
> Mark, your mail is part of the angle missing from my field of vision. 
> When will you provide a downloadable version of your knowledge and 
> experience related to publishing?
>
> ciao
> mc otis
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com <mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com>>
> To: Prashant Kumar <p.kumar at physics.usyd.edu.au 
> <mailto:p.kumar at physics.usyd.edu.au>>
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>>
> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 9:32 PM
> Subject: Re: Pynchon eBook Trailer
>
>
> In filling in all around Pynchon, this would be an interesting 
> exercise, getting and using ALL the facts and educated guesses
> one could get........I kinda wish I had time.........
>
> But, short answers to provide some framework.....Writers get 
> "advances"--an upfront loan paid back by royalty deductions later---
> upon which to live while they write their books. TRP had to get these, 
> and especially of some liveable-on size after Crying of Lot 49..
> We know by hearsay that he wrote the story that became Lot 49 because 
> he 'needed' money, so royalties from V. (and any initial advance
> for GR--if there was one) might have entropied his worklife. (is this 
> a psychological 'objective correlative" for his early concern with 
> entropy?
> One might also remember how he was said to be always running in 
> Positively Fourth Street...'fearing time was running out"? )
>
> Anyway, he broke through into, perhaps, enough sales to live on when 
> Lot 49 was published in paperback. He went wide. Lot 49 was
> many readers' intro into his work and soon enough the Academy was 
> assigning it so sales continued and grew.
>
> Then GR was a legitimate NYTimes bestseller.....(minimum 50,00 sold, 
> very minimum....surely over 100, 000, 200,000 then....and
> earlier ones picked up again.....)
>
> And he got grants......a macArthur when, 80s sometime)...a Guggenheim 
> earlier?........
>
> Bigger advances for later works, I'm sure...(aspect of book accounting 
> not much known: an author can sometimes NOT sell enoough copies
> to earn the royalties that pay back the amount they were advanced YET.....
>
> the publishing company still can make nice money on the sales after 
> deducting losses for unclaimed advances.....(work it out sometime w
> made-up amounts....)
>
> And, with Pynchon, unlike any flash in pan, literary or purely 
> commercialm he has always been in print so is always earn ing some 
> royalties...
>
> i would essay this too-quick guess.....Today, 2012.....TRP sells maybe 
> 5,000 paperback copies of all his books except GR and Lot 49....
> (and, yes, that is a reductive generlaized number and I'll bet some 
> plisters might want to speculate on the varying ongoing sales of the 
> various novels)
> I'd say 10,000 GR a year....and over 20,000 Lot 49 a year........
>
> so, do some math....
>
> And flame me for hasty stupidities......
>
> From: Prashant Kumar <p.kumar at physics.usyd.edu.au 
> <mailto:p.kumar at physics.usyd.edu.au>>
> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com <mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com>>
> Cc: Tyler Wilson <tbsqrd at hotmail.com <mailto:tbsqrd at hotmail.com>>; 
> P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>>; 
> "against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>" 
> <against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>>
> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2012 10:36 PM
> Subject: Re: Pynchon eBook Trailer
>
>
> Stupid follow up question (it was me who asked the original): how does 
> that translate into average yearly income?
>
>
> 'cos if we imagine (entirely for argument) that TRP gets 15% on books 
> at $30 ea. and 100,000 (I have no idea whether this is a realistic 
> figure) sales for the lifetime of a book, say 20 years, then that's a 
> grad student's stipend of $22,500 p.a.
>
> On 16 June 2012 04:30, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
> I don't know 'nothin, Tyler, but if I have time i may try to get some 
> answers...
> >
> > but your post remeinded me that I wanted to answer the post of 
> whoever asked
> > what a writer like Pynchon earns.........
> >
> > And the answer for most writers' printed books is 8 to 15% 
> royaltes--from list price---per sale.
> > A writer loses no royalties when one buys new from amazon, and 
> such.....(some exception to that
> > if the publisher has terms regarding lower roylaties if they have to 
> sell at standard wholesale (and higher--what are called 'special 
> sales") prices.)
> >
> > There are often bonueses for hitting bestsller lists---almost always 
> the NYT...
> >
> > TRP surely had contracts at 15% after GR....earlier ones could have 
> been lower--10--12.5%
> > but have surely been renegotiated since........
> >
> > Writers typically get 50% of all
> subrights deals.........paperback license, movie rights, Czech 
> editions, etc.)
> >
> > One aspect of p's ebook deal that some in the industry wonder about 
> is Why/How did penguin get all of them?
> > Deals?...why din't they--harper, no slouches---fight to keep the 
> ones they 'own"?
> >
> > Ms. Jackson and Thomas obviously wanted Penguin for all..........
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Tyler Wilson <tbsqrd at hotmail.com <mailto:tbsqrd at hotmail.com>>
> > To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>>
> > Cc: against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> > Sent: Friday, June 15, 2012 12:18 PM
> > Subject: RE: Pynchon eBook Trailer
> >
> >
> >
> > Any of you folks know anything about--or seen before--the artwork in 
> P's eBook trailer representing Slow Learner?: the bird, the train, the 
> pyramid... I have never seen those graphics, and it seems I would have 
> by now, my not-quite-healthy interest long in the running. I've a 
> distant recollection of reading that he did not at all care for the 
> cover art of the
> Little Brown first edition. (Can anyone confirm this?) So perhaps 
> these graphics were created for the trailer instead?
> > Can anyone school me?
> > With all my gratitude,--T
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> From: against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> >> Date: Wed, 3 Jun 012 2::5::8 -500<
> >> Subject: Re: Pynchon eBook Trailer
> >> To: scuffling at gmail.com <mailto:scuffling at gmail.com>
> >> CC: pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jun 3,, 012 at ::7 AM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com 
> <mailto:scuffling at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> http://greg.org/archive/012//6//2//thomas_pynchons_e-book_trailer.html
> >> > greg.org: the making of: Thomas Pynchon's e-Book Trailer
> >> > By greg
> >> > Thomas Pynchon's e-Book Trailer. Four words that I, for one, ever 
> > expected
> >> > to type in this sequence, but here we are. After Long Resistance,
> >> > Pynchon Allows Novels to Be Sold as E-Books [nyt] Thomas Pynchon on
> >> > Kindle someday,
> >> > but not yet ..
> >>
> >> Thomas Pynchon - The Complete Collection - eBooks
> >>
> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urNQSSEEBGA
> >
>
>
>

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