the Big Pun

[David Jordan]

On Mon, 5 Aug 1996, Christopher Tassava wrote:

> No, no, no!  Pynchon's big pun is to be found on page 591 of the Penguin 
> edition (turn there now, please).  He spends - and we do not mind his 
> spending - eleven pages detailing the cessation of Lyle Bland (he of the 
> Slothrop vending), and at the very end of the chapter, in his parodic 
> speech to his family, Lyle alludes to his family's being taken care of 
> (post-dissolution).  The Bland fambly's finances are, of course, being 
> overseen by the law firm of (drumroll puhleeze) Saliteri, Poore, Nash, De 
> Brutus, and Short.  Which is not only Hobbes' description of 
> pre-cultural life, but also life in the Zone.
>  

Oh, I don't know.  I mean no disrespect, but I always thought that one 
was kind of obvious.  I mean, gee, I don't have much literary or 
philosophical schooling, but still *I* got it.

Personally, I can't wait for my business to really get going so I can
merit being represented by the law firm of Leary, Filli, Slapp, & Tickell,
Inc.  You know, the small (twenty-attorney) firm in North Beach, San
Francisco.  That is, on the south edge of North Beach, near the Financial
District.  It operates out of a historic brick building that predates
the quake of ought six, and which once housed a brothel and later a fire
station.  They're a short walk from the Belli Building and the old Landels
Ripley & Diamond offices.

Leary was the Irish-American, Filli the Italian-American, and the fathers'
fathers' fathers', ad nauseum, of the other two were either Dutch, German,
or Scandinavian, probably one of the first two, as they are both of old
immigrant stock dating back to the late seventeenth century, not like the
first two, thank god, whose ancestors first arrived in North America
*after the Civil War.* Imagine.  New immigrants, and just not the same
sort of people.  You sort of wonder how the four of them got together. 

The play on words (not a simple pun) I'm really proud of having gotten,
*on first reading*, is the less obvious rearrangement of a pun attributed
to Jesus that occurs in the episode recounting the double agents'
convention.  No, I'm not a Christian, but it was inflicted on me as a
child, so I know a little bit about the New Testament.  No one I've
discussed the book with admits to having noticed it until I pointed it out.  
Has anyone else on this list?

David Jordan
littlcat at netcom.com