2012 Philip K. Dick Festival

[Mark Kohut]

Sometimes even famous series editors, such as Mr. Lethem, cannot title books. Authors do not
usually (unless they get successful enough to have their agent get tht into contracts). I tell people
it is something Houses reserve for themselves, so they do it their way, most often 'judging' a suggested
title for what THEY see as marketing or selling reasons. 
In this case, if they were aware at a meeting that one work was early in his career, I can imagine someone
saying, "Well, for those who know that, the title will not matter to them; and for all who don't this keeps
the series sounding coherent.".....
 
It was very interesting to learn a short while back that the Philip K. Dick volumes were the 'best-selling' 
L of A volumes. Since so many of Dick's works were never published in hardcover or reprinted by mainstream presses
and were O.P.,  more could only get Dick this way---compared to, say, Roth, Bellow, even Cheever, etc....
especially libraries....learned major library systems needed to buy Dick over other L of A such as my examples above
(and other examples) since they, the libraries, stil lhad circulating copies of the major works of many L of A writers. 
 

________________________________
 From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Cc: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2012 7:03 AM
Subject: Re: 2012 Philip K. Dick Festival
  


"The conference’s guest of honor will be none other than Jonathan Lethem, the editor for Philip K Dick’s three volumes from the prestigious Library of America ..."

Yes, my edition of the VALIS trilogy (plus A Maze Of Death) comes from that Library of America. While the pages are very beautiful - thin but tight paper, seducing chemical scent -, I never quite understood why Lethem chose the overall title "VALIS and Later Novels". You know, A Maze of Death was written in the late 1960s and published in 1970, long before VALIS and the others. Lethem is absolutely right that 'Maze' corresponds with the others in many ways, and so I think it makes sense to publish them all in one single volume. However, while I understand that "VALIS and Two Later Novels plus an Earlier One" would sound way too clumsy and "VALIS (Buy 3! Get 4!!)" a little too trashy for this "prestigious" edition, I do not quite see what speaks against "VALIS and Related Novels" ... Anyway, the notes and the chronology are useful and sometimes also entertaining: "Anthony Boucher, Dick's longtime mentor, dies. Writes unpublished biographical statement: '
 ... Married, has two daughters and young, pretty, nervous wife ... Spends most of his time listening to first Scarlatti and then the Jefferson Airplane, then Götterdämmerung, in an attempt to fit them all together. Has many phobias ... Owes creditors a fortune, which he does not have. Warning: don't lend him any money. In addition he will steal your pills.'" (p. 831)


On 27.05.2012 03:48, Dave Monroe wrote:


http://www.philipkdickfestival.com/   
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