Unscrewing the navel allusion

Jeff Sunbury jsunbury at gmail.com
Sun May 12 14:05:10 CDT 2013


from Fast Learner:
We know from the HRC correspondence between Pynchon and Faith Sale that Y.
was copyedited by Catharine Carver, who (according to Smith) also came up
with the eventual title of the novel. In his October 1-2,1962, letter to
Sale, Pynchon calls Carver "the green fountain pen."

If Pynchon were a superhero (or plaster saint), this would be part of his
origin story.


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 9:34 AM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:

> Closing remarks about Corlies Smith
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/books/24smith.html
> When he first went to work, in 1952, publishing was a still a profession
> for tweedy, Ivy League types who, in their younger days at least, were
> required to down multiple martinis at lunch and then put in an afternoon's
> work. Mr. Smith fit the bill perfectly. He was tall and good-looking, known
> for his elegant manners and tart one-liners. But there was nothing snobbish
> or old fashioned about his taste. In the late 50's he was the first editor
> to spot the then unknown Thomas Pynchon; later he was the first to realize
> that Mr. Breslin was much more than a newspaper columnist.
>
> (Note: First editor (besides Faith Sale) to spot the then unknown Thomas
> Pynchon;)
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Erik, thanks for the obit on Faith Sale.
>> From Herman and Krafft - 'Fast Learner' (pg.15):
>> Pynchon must have exchanged quite a few letters with Faith Sale during
>> that final period, and one of them is part of the batch acquired by the HRC
>> along with the typescript. This October 1-2 (1962) letter not only confirms
>> one of the substantial galley-stage cuts, but also shows that, remarkably,
>> Pynchon let Sale decide a number of details for herself at the last moment
>> when he was "neutral" about them. In a letter of March 9,1963, also owned
>> by the HRC, Pynchon expresses his gratitude to Sale "for all [she] did for
>> the book" ,with a quotation from the composer Ralph Vaughn Williams. Just
>> like a specific rendition of the last movement of his sixth symphony, her
>> editorial decisions were "'positive, sensitive, pianissimo.'"
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 8:40 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, others remember this joke from way back too....I just
>>> wondered speculatively whether Pynchon used it because he
>>> heard it from Candida, first or repeated. Surprised me to read her use
>>> of it.
>>>
>>>   *From:* Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>
>>> *To:* Pynchon Liste <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> *Sent:* Sunday, May 12, 2013 7:22 AM
>>>
>>> *Subject:* Re: Unscrewing the navel allusion
>>>
>>> When I was a young boy, my father told me the story of a young man who,
>>> upon discovering that his navel had a slot like a screwhead does, took a
>>> screwdriver to it and found that it unscrewed just like a screw does.  He
>>> kept at it until his ass fell off.  There are variations.
>>>
>>> Yours truly,
>>> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>>> Henry Musikar, CISSP
>>> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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 <http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553016/joycePeytonMeigs.pdf?sequence=1>
>>> RAINBOW<http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553016/joycePeytonMeigs.pdf?sequence=1> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 9:45 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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