Fwd: Cape CL49

[Dave Monroe]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tore Rye Andersen
Date: Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 2:21 AM
Subject: Re: Cape CL49
To: against.the.dave at gmail.com

I'm not currently subscribed to the p-list, but saw the posts about
textual variations in Lot 49 and thought I'd pipe up - feel free to
forward to the list:

The Cape '67 Lot 49 is just a reprint of the Lippincott edition, same
pagination (183 pages) etc. In 1974, Penguin published a paperback,
which was also based on the American text, but had a different
pagination.

In 1979, however, when Picador published their paperback edition, the
text was changed significantly. As opposed to the first two British
editions of the novel, the Picador edition employs British orthography
throughout (substituting gray for grey, windscreen for windshield,
towards for toward etc.). Furthermore, the Picador edition and
subsequent Vintage editions (which are reprints of the 127-page
Picador edition) have sometimes even dropped entire sentences. So
hyphenations are really the least of it...

A few examples:

The sentence on p. 19 of the Lippincott/p. 10 of the current Harper
edition which reads ""No," said Oedipa, and told him all" is missing
in the Picador/Vintage (p. 12).

A brief passage on p. 122/99 which reads: "[...] he went on, trying a
smile. "Always just that little percent on the wrong side of breaking
even. Twenty-three years" is also missing in the Picador/Vintage (p.
84).

Mucho's exclamation on p. 144/118: "Because the world is so abundant.
No end to it baby" has gone AWOL in the Picador/Vintage (p. 99).

The phrase "some headlong expansion of himself, some visit" on p.
178/147 is likewise missing in the Picador/Vintage (p. 123).

There are also a number of significant misprints in the
Picador/Vintage editions:

On p. 126/102 (Lippincott/Harper), Oedipa feels "wetness against her
breast." In the Picador/Vintage (p. 87), she feels "wetness against
her breasts" - a slightly more sexualized Oedipa in the Uk editions,
then.

A worse misprint is found in the important passage about the old
sailor and dt/delta t: In Lippincott/Harper (p. 129/105), delta t is
described as "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be
confronted at last for what it was" - which makes perfect sense. In
the Picador/Vintage, however, "change" has been replaced with the
equally loaded word "chance" - transforming the dense passage into
gibberish, more or less. But since 1979, that gibberish is what most
European readers of The Crying of Lot 49 have had to cut their teeth
on.

In other words, to describe the differences introduced in the Picador
(transforming American English to British English, dropping sentences,
introducing misprints) as "textual variations" would really be too
kind: they're errors, plain and simple, which should really cause us
to react as Bortz:

"Oedipa showed him the paperback with the line in it. Bortz, squinting
at the page, groped for another beer. “My God,” he announced, “I’ve
been Bowdlerized in reverse or something.” He flipped to the front, to
see who’d re-edited his edition of Wharfinger. “Ashamed to sign it.
Damn. I’ll have to write the publishers. K. da Chingado and Company?
You ever heard of them? New York.” He looked at the sun through a page
or two. “Offset.” Brought his nose close to the text. “Misprints. Gah.
Corrupt.” He dropped the book on the grass and looked at it with
loathing."

All best,

Tore