Duck Soup

[Andrew Dinn]

m1nmw00 at FRB.GOV writes:

> I feel fairly foolish asking this, but as a new Pynchonite I may be
> behind the curve.  On the back of my copy of _Gravity's Rainbow_
> there's a blurb from someone at the San Francisco Examiner that
> says, "This book will be compared to _Ulysses_ and _Duck Soup_."
> Now I've read Ulysses (twice), but Duck Soup doesn't ring a bell.  I
> asked my (unhelpful) bookstore clerks, and found no entry in Books
> in Print, so somebody help me out.  In the context of the quote it
> certainly sounds like a Milestone of 20th Century Literature, so I
> would like to correct my ignorance.

It's a Marx brothers film, the title coming from a confusion
associated with the word Viaduct (sorry, viaduct) when spoken with a
Jewish german accent (as in `why a duck?'). Actually, `A Day at the
Races' would have been a better choice for comparison (it is mentioned
in the book [in connection with racism?]) but neither comparison is
way off base - the joke at the Casino about Tamara arriving before
today is pure Groucho. That said, `Milestone of 20th Century XXX' is
pushing it.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
there is no map / and a compass / wouldn't help at all