IV, buzz and book sales

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The crowd seeing it at the NY Film Festival probably skews higher towards at least knowing who Pynchon is, and probably having read at least a book or two of his. It will be interesting to see how wide a distribution the it gets. The movie may be a gateway to the book, but I'm not sure that road leads to GR.

Laura

-----Original Message-----

From: matthew cissell 

Sent: Sep 30, 2014 5:38 AM

To: pynchon-l at waste.org

Subject: IV, buzz and book sales



Hey P-listers,
   How many of you folks spend time looking at those Amazon book sales numbers? Not that it's clear how that number was arrived at (some algorithm) but we get the gist: small number big sales, big number low sales. It's the kind of thing authors look at, but so do some scholars. Like John Thompson in his book Merchants of Culture (which was recommended to me by our own wonderful Mark Kohut). In that excellent work Thompson shows how an Oprah mention can turn into a massive change in book sales (as was the case for Night by Elie Wiesel) but so can a movie adaptation. Thompson focuses on Ian McEwan's book Atonement and how its sales spiked after the movie release.
   It seems reasonable to ask how much the release of IV will change its Amazon book number. Additionally, if buzz builds and the movie is nominated for some award (see James English "The Economy of Prestige" on prizes and awards) this should also have some effect on book sales. Won't this bring TP's writing to the attention of many new readers? Will we see his other book numbers tic upward? These questions are pertintent to the study of Pynchon's work in that it deals with the growth of the reading community composed of TP's readers and thus eventually the position and value of his work in society. 
   I think it would prove interesting to see how many people that view the film 1) were previously aware of the author, 2) had read the book, 3) or planned to read the book or others by the author. This could be done with a short, well designed survey as people leave the cinema. Sadly, here in the Basque country that is pretty much impossible for me to do. Anybody in an anglophone urban area up for the task? Hey New Yorkers, any takers? How about the UK crew? 
  Harold Bloom (the once great Critic before the arrival of the Usurper from Durham) has made his claim for the Bard as the inventor of humanity. I would put forth that TP is one of a chorus of writers who continue to reinvent and/or challenge ideas we have about ourselves, and as such this writhing new world of paranoias and plots (for that is surely the sign of our times) corresponds more to TP's fiction than the Weltanschauung behind the aesthetic ideals of a certain critic, tempered though he be of late.
On a hillmc Otis
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l