"Gravity dips due to Antarctic ice loss."--no irony here

[Mark Kohut]

Would like plisters to weigh in on the titles' closeness in their judgment. Interesting associative possibilities to explore, explain oneself with. 

To me, MINDLESS PLEASURES does still have Empsonian ambiguity; seems more overarching ---like GR and other TPR titles---than Brodky's Party of Animals. His title is more specifically prosaic----prosaic not a pejorative here--- in keeping with his kind of realism. A simpler irony ( admittedly ' "animals" has a commoner, known, 'ambiguity'. ) He kept his title more specific even as RUNAWAY SOUL. 

Just my biased feel. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Oct 4, 2014, at 8:33 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
> 
> 
> > And Pynchon had the title on early manuscript copies when Harold was not even close.<
> 
> Really?! " ... in 1964, Brodkey signed a book contract with Random House for his first novel, titled A Party of Animals (it was also referred to as The Animal Corner)," says Wikipedia. Pynchon, on the other hand, had no title at all for his manuscript by the year 1967: "On January 24, 1967, Pynchon signed an option agreement with Viking in the low five figures for an "as yet untitled novel," the final terms, including advance and royalties, to be agreed on upon delivery. The delivery date was optimistically scheduled, heh heh heh, for December 29, 1967. This would seem to imply that Pynchon had already written a significant part of the book, although nothing in the file indicates whether anyone at Viking had read anything as yet, or even if anyone knew its subject matter, let alone its projected length." At some point during the following years the manuscript acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures. But before it finally got changed to Gravity's Rainbow, probably by Pynchon, a number of other titles were considered: "Then there was the thorny question of the title. Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection."
>  http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html
> 
> So what's your point here?
> 
>  > But the titles do not seem that close for one to be changed, to me.< 
> 
> To me they seem very close. Animals don't have parties, human beings have. The formulation "party of animals" suggests humans behaving mindlessly. Mindless pleasures are those which are enjoyed in an animal-like state of ignorance. Both titles sound very 1960s to me. And perhaps this is one of reason why they later were dropped.  
> 
> 
>> On 04.10.2014 13:14, Mark Kohut wrote:
>> Interesting, unusual possible connection. But the titles do not seem that close for one to be changed, to me. And Pynchon had the title on early manuscript copies when Harold was not even close. 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>>> On Oct 4, 2014, at 5:50 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> My theory on this is that Pynchon heard about Harold Brodkey's projected novel "A Party of Animals" (--- which later got partly published under the title "The Runaway Soul") and didn't want the title of his own novel to sound so similar. But that's just a guess.
>>>> 
>>>> On 03.10.2014 20:00, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>> I hope I can learn somehow, before entropy slows me to stillness,
>>>> how TRP hit on and decided to change the title from Mindless
>>>> Pleasures---which has many resonances but
>>>> seems a quite different overarching meaning (sometimes)---to Gravity's
>>>> Rainbow.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
> 
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