Names in Pynchon's Texts

[Eric Alan Weinstein University Of London Centre For English Studies]

     Tony Tanner points out that Pynchon's names are the most
overdetermined in fiction and "he is probably undermining and
mocking in the very act of naming." The author's (authoritarian)
presence tends to disallow in practice the kind of freedom for his 
creations which Pynchon might in theory wish to call into being.
 The author, with his God-like power over the fictional lives he
 manufactures, finds himself (albeit mostly comically)existing  in
 a position of moral untenability. This can sometimes be 
compensated for or even overcome through  the use  of multiplicious 
and contradictory significations within the names of some of the more 
central characters. Here, by a process of overembedding signification,
possibility may be re-opened.  One of the best example of this method 
may be observed in the dozens of takes possible on  "Oedipa
Maas."

    I do think  it is possible to see Pynchon's naming as an 
extension of the Dickensian naming tradition. Both use naming
to call into question the myths of independent bourgeois selfhood 
in the context of the various economic and political usurptions
which (both feudalism and) capitalism require as the price of such 
an attainment.