Unscrewing the navel allusion

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, asking who he is would surely indicate that. Probably did not read the first chapter of either Catch--18
or On the Road in New Worlod Writing.  

From: Ben Canard <bencanard2000 at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 3:04 PM
Subject: Re: Unscrewing the navel allusion



Well the letter to Candida is short, but P asks who Heller is. I assume that means he'd never heard of him before.



On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 3:19 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Great detail. Thanks. yeah, that is the question, I guess, unless we can know if he read parts of Catch--22 earlier, which,
>of course the first chapter he must have.....Took Heller a while to complete it.....Candida was sharing those 75 pages 
>as early as 1958.    
>
>
>From: Ben Canard <bencanard2000 at gmail.com>
>To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
>Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 1:34 PM
>Subject: Re: Unscrewing the navel allusion
>
>
>
>Lippincott sighed the contract for V. in January 1960, sight unseen; Pynchon wouldn't even say what it was about. It was bought on the strength of Low-Lands, which Lippincott placed in New World Writing. The manuscript was turned in in the summer of 1961 and then the novel was heavily edited by Pynchon (See Herman and Krafft's essay). In the letter Pynchon sent to Candida about Catch-22 in Nov. 1961, he sounds like he has just read the book for the first time. I guess the question is was Pynchon's editing influenced by that reading.
>
>
>
>On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>It is 1958. "Candida was delighted by [Robert] Gottleib's [S & S editor] enthusiasm for the Catch--18 manuscript.[[only 75 pages]. Finally,
>>someone got it! "Ii thought my navel would unscrew and my ass would fall off, " she often said to describe her happiness
>>when negotiations went well with an editor."   She had also received a positive response from Tom Ginsberg at Viking. 
>>
>>S & S, we know, did publish Catch-22 and Ginsberg, a decade later, Gravity's Rainbow. 
>>
>>I think it is clear from the stuff about Candida from this bio that Pynchon woudda probably read Catch-18 while he was writing 
>>V. as, at least I hinted at,,\ I say proudly full of myself, when I think I found some echoes of Heller in the early parts of V....
>>Candida sent it, gave it, to about everybody. 
>>
>>Catch--22 was not published until October 1961,  approximately 6--9 months before V. would have been set to be published by 
>>Lippincott in early 1963. (We know part of V. was published in 1961, but I do not know when V., finished, was offered to
>>publishers, if it was...(that is, unless CD had made a deal early with Lippincott based on a major part of it.)
>>
>
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