<div dir="auto">I think some Pynchon names are character tags and some misleading, meaning we mistrust the Dickensian tradition of personality writ into one's very naming. Laszlo Jamf (jive ass m-f) is what it says on the label, Tyrone Slothrop (entropy sloth) is a cypher, but Bongo-Shaftsbury probably doesn't warrant much deep thought.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 27 Jan 2017 4:05 am, "Monte Davis" <<a href="mailto:montedavis49@gmail.com">montedavis49@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">AFAIK there's no record of Pynchon registered for a Nabokov class (although anyone could audit or drop in). OTOH, there's an alternate, unattested avenue:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#281e1e" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">"[P] was taught for a spell by no less a figure than Vladimir Nabokov, who was on the staff of The Cornell Writer. The magazine published Pynchon’s first story “The Small Rain†in March 1959, shortly before he graduated. The two men were not, however, close, Pynchon later told a friend that Nabokov’s Russian accent was so thick, he could hardly understand a word he said. Nabokov, when asked about his famous ex-student, claimed not to remember him well, though his wife recalled his unusual handwriting, 'half printing, half script'. "<br></font><a href="http://goog_161004631" target="_blank"><br></a></div><div class="gmail_default"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/thomas-pynchon-on-911-american-literature-s-greatest-conspiracy-theorist-finally-addresses-his-8830225.html" target="_blank">http://www.independent.co.uk/<wbr>news/people/profiles/thomas-<wbr>pynchon-on-911-american-<wbr>literature-s-greatest-<wbr>conspiracy-theorist-finally-<wbr>addresses-his-8830225.html</a><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Contact between a college literary magazine's faculty advisor and a one-shot contributor? I can imagine none, little, or much. The remark about N's accent could have come from sitting in on a lecture (other, enrolled students said the same) as readily as from personal contact.   </div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Re Oedipa and Oedipus: I find connection not through Freud, but through the plague on Thebes that prompted Oedipus to look back and discover whom he'd killed. There's Oedipa's initial anomie, a quest that reveals varieties of midcentury cultural sickness -- and. of course the riddle of the Sphinx to be answered. More, several of Oedipa's moments of heightened doubt and revelation are couched in the language of vision and blindness.</div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#281e1e" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 4:04 AM, John Bailey <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sundayjb@gmail.com" target="_blank">sundayjb@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>The Nabokov class rumour apparently came from Nabokov's wife, but there's been a marked lack of evidence to back it up (from what I remember).<br></div>Blodgett Waxwing's specialty is forging documents, however, and the Caserne Martiere he escaped from was a prison for (among other things) theft and black market stuff, so perhaps it's a nod to the Pale Fire narrator/editor's gift for literary grifting.<br></div><div class="m_7857578862678472881HOEnZb"><div class="m_7857578862678472881h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 5:07 PM, Jade Becker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jbecker13@georgefox.edu" target="_blank">jbecker13@georgefox.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Noticed on the first line of Nabokov's Pale Fire (the poem part), we've got a mention of "the shadow of the waxwing slain."<br>
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Do you think this adds any meaning to our friend Blodgett Waxwing's name/role in Gravity's Rainbow? Or is it just for fun? I remember hearing rumors about Pynchon taking a class or two by Nabokov. I haven't finished Pale Fire yet, so perhaps the significance will become apparent.<br>
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Or perhaps not. Unless there was something I missed about Mucho, Oedipa's name seemed to have little to do with the Complex.<br>
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Jade-<br>
Pynchon-l / <a href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?lis<wbr>tpynchon-l</a><br>
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