Cape CL49

[jochen stremmel]

Thanks, Dave!

And my compliment, Tore!!! Did someone pay you for all the hours you
spent comparing these editions?

And I could accept that there happen mistakes when it comes to a new
printing (chance for change sounds like a scanning error) and then not
the best proofreading - but what is this bullshit with making a BE
book out of an AE book? Does anybody know if they did the same with
another Pynchon? With any other US author of the 20th century?



2012/9/11 Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>:
> ---------- 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