TP on the shelves, not M&D

[John Bailey]

In Australia Pynchon doesn't seem to be very widely read but he's
certainly ahead of the pack in the way you mention, bookstore-wise.
I'd put his presence well ahead of Gass, Barthes and Coover (for any
of which I've had to waver divining rods around second-hand bookshops
near decent local universities for even the slightest chance of
reading).

Generally Pynchon's books here have almost (but not equally) about the
same availability as those of Atwood, Nabokov, Borges, Morrison, Le
Guin, Rushdie, McEwan. The relatively recent Vintage reissues with the
crazy-busy-cartoon-pop-art-Bruegel covers flooded the stores and I
picked up a bunch of remainders to throw at friends. I expect the IV
movie edition will have the same storefrontage.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 10:19 PM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
>   Having just returned from the states I thought I would offer up my view on
> where TP stands in comparison to other writers from his cohort e.g. W. Gass,
> J, Barthes or R. Coover.
>
>   I was in Illinois over the holidays and when I could I went to bookstores,
> looking into a couple of used bookstores and 3 different Barnes & Noble
> locations from Southern Illinois to Chicago. Now, I know it's a small sample
> and hardly scientific but the conclusion was clear: TP is on the shelves and
> the others are not generally present. Whatsmore, I noticed that IV has come
> out in a movie paperback with Joaquin's face on the cover. It seems to me
> that he is very much out in front of the pack.
>
>    (In one B&N outside Champaign-Urbana, I saw Luc Herman and Steven
> Weisenburger's "GR, Domination and Freedom"! Not many TP scholars can that.)
>
>   It would be interesting to see if other folks noticed something similar, I
> expect there could be some regional differences. (Maybe more John Barthes in
> Marlyland stores?)
>
> ciao
> otis
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