From the archives:
Chapter One: “There was death afoot in the darkness.”—opening line of“The Man of Bronze” by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent).
Chapter One: “In which Benny Profane, a schlemiel and human yo-yo, gets to an apocheir.*”—opening line of “V.” by Thomas Pynchon.
In 1964, a clever editor at Bantam decided to republish the adventures of Doc Savage, stories that first appeared from 1933 to 1947 in the pulp magazine named, not surprisingly, “Doc Savage”. It took Bantam until the early 1990s to publish all 181 “novels.” James Bama, a legendary paperback cover artist, painted the first cover and 61 others that followed.
That same year, Bantam also assigned Bama to paint the cover of “V.”, the first novel by a promising writer named Thomas Pynchon, an assignment that showed the great versatility of James Bama, who painted more than 450 covers during his long and profitable commercial career. Bama, now 91, moved to Wyoming in the 1970s and established himself as a preeminent painter of the west.
As for me, I bought both books when I was thirteen. Can you guess which one I read right away and which one remains to be finished even after more than 53 years? I’ll get back to “V.” once I finish “Gravity’s Rainbow,” which has been on my bookshelf since the day it was published in 1973.
But what I think I’ll do now is make a cup of tea and reread “The Man of Bronze,” which as I recall was quite entertaining hokum. After all, death is afoot.
————
Apocheir appears to be a word made up by Pynchon, who offers this explanation in “V.”: “If you look from the side at a planet swinging in its orbit, split the sun with a mirror and imagine a string, it all looks like a yo-yo. The point furthest from the sun is called aphelion. The point furthest from the yo-yo hand is called, by analogy, apocheir . . . “ Got that, friends? There may be a surprise quiz any day now.
Chapter One: “In which Benny Profane, a schlemiel and human yo-yo, gets to an apocheir.*”—opening line of “V.” by Thomas Pynchon.
In 1964, a clever editor at Bantam decided to republish the adventures of Doc Savage, stories that first appeared from 1933 to 1947 in the pulp magazine named, not surprisingly, “Doc Savage”. It took Bantam until the early 1990s to publish all 181 “novels.” James Bama, a legendary paperback cover artist, painted the first cover and 61 others that followed.
That same year, Bantam also assigned Bama to paint the cover of “V.”, the first novel by a promising writer named Thomas Pynchon, an assignment that showed the great versatility of James Bama, who painted more than 450 covers during his long and profitable commercial career. Bama, now 91, moved to Wyoming in the 1970s and established himself as a preeminent painter of the west.
As for me, I bought both books when I was thirteen. Can you guess which one I read right away and which one remains to be finished even after more than 53 years? I’ll get back to “V.” once I finish “Gravity’s Rainbow,” which has been on my bookshelf since the day it was published in 1973.
But what I think I’ll do now is make a cup of tea and reread “The Man of Bronze,” which as I recall was quite entertaining hokum. After all, death is afoot.
————
Apocheir appears to be a word made up by Pynchon, who offers this explanation in “V.”: “If you look from the side at a planet swinging in its orbit, split the sun with a mirror and imagine a string, it all looks like a yo-yo. The point furthest from the sun is called aphelion. The point furthest from the yo-yo hand is called, by analogy, apocheir . . . “ Got that, friends? There may be a surprise quiz any day now.
posted by Vince Cosgrove at 3:08 PM
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