Unscrewing the navel allusion

[Mark Kohut]

$500 then equals about $3800 today. 


From: Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com>
To: Ben Canard <bencanard2000 at gmail.com> 
Cc: Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: Unscrewing the navel allusion



Thanks Ben. That's certainly more detailed information about the letters between Pynchon and Smith than the letter from April 1962 cited in the student thesis linked above. That letter specifically regards revisions that Smith suggested to the narrative structure in Ch.9 - Mondaugen's Story.  So, if I follow correctly, the contract for V. was signed in Jan. 1960, Pynchon met Smith in Seattle later in 1960 and the first draft of the typescript was delivered to Smith in Cleveland, Ohio on July 10, 1961 at an American Library Association conference by Pat Sale (nee Mahool) who Pynchon knew from Cornell and who did the actual typing of the MS. I'm surprised by the meager $500 advance even considering those are 1961 dollars.  



On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 2:21 PM, Ben Canard <bencanard2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/27/59 Sorry I forgot the link.
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>On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 3:19 PM, Ben Canard <bencanard2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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>1962 is an error the typescript was turned in June of 1961, as best as can be determined. Here's an article about a memo in which the writer discusses accepting it.
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>>On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:
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>>I love that story. The mental image conjures a cartoon by Don Martin (w/ MAD magazine 1956-1988) in which a man pulls an annoying hair from his shoulder with the sound effect "POINK" and his arm drops off. 
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>>>inre the publication of V. - I re-read V. in March this year and came across a 2009 grad student thesis: (RE)VISIONS OF GENOCIDE:NARRATIVES OF GENOCIDE IN THOMAS PYNCHON’S V. AND GRAVITY’S RAINBOW that refers to an April 1962 typescript draft of V. in letters between Pynchon and his Lippincott editor, Corlies 'Corky' Smith, also, the ref. 'Smith, Shawn. Pynchon and History: Metahistorical Rhetoric and Postmodern Narrative Form in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon. New York: Routledge, 2005. I'm new to this P-list so this may be old news.
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>>>On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 9:45 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
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>>>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. 
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>>>>S & S, we know, did publish Catch-22 and Ginsberg, a decade later, Gravity's Rainbow. 
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>>>>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. 
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>>>>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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