Jokes in GR

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Nigel Richardson writes:
"Just started rereading Gravity's Rainbow for the first time in a couple
of years, and on page 11 of the UK Picador edition, I noticed a truly
awful joke I'd previously missed:
 
"He's driven out, away, east over Vauxhall Bridge in a dented
green Lagonda by his batman, a Corporal Wayne."
 
Is this a one-off, or yet another source for names in GR, the alter-egos of
comic book characters?"

Not too many other of that sort, though it's surprising how many critics have
completely overlooked that particular joke.  Alfred Appel in NABOKOV'S DARK
CINEMA used the allusion to prove that Vlad was a better appropriator of pop
culture--but he said that the "joke" was really Pynchon demoting *John*
Wayne to a mere corporal!

On the other hand, P's own knowledge of comics doesn't seem to be obsessive--
he alludes, for example, to Submariner and his multilingual crew losing the
charge from their batteries.  Now, as far as I know, even during WWII, Prince
Namor, the Submariner, never had a multilingual crew and being a prince of
Atlantis, never needed a submarine at all.  I suspect that P pronounced the
name (as many did) "Sub-mar-INE-er" instead of "Sub-MARE-iner" and somehow
confused him with Blackhawk, who did have a (stereotypically) multilingual
crew (even though they rarely used submarines either).

But then, I suppose we could compile a list of Pynchon's Errors (and perhaps debate
whether they are intentional or a demonstration of chaos :-)  )--eg., P says
Pokler missed Atilla the Hun roaring in from the East in Lang's NIBELUNG--small
wonder, since Atilla doesn't roar in from anywhere in that film.

u.s.w.


Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)