Schoenmaker

[Mr Craig Clark]

LOT64 at aol.com  wrote:
 
> I guess Schoenmaker is like 'sweet maker'? Making people's appearance
> sweeter?

To which I replied
> Unless I'm hideously wrong, Schoenmaker translates as "Shoe-maker" 
> rather than "sweet-maker". Which I'd guess (I haven't read Carloddi in 
> years) is a reference to Pinocchio and noses...

And Bonnie commented
> I don't know, Craig.  Pynchon may have altered the spelling, but German
> "schon" is "beautiful" (eng), which seems to make sense(?) for that
> character.

...which possibility had completely eluded me - thanks for pointing 
it out. One thing which does occur though: why would Pynchon change 
the spelling? Surely he intended not only to allude to the making of 
"beauty" but also to the making of shoes. I'm not going to insist on 
my Pinocchio reference (if only because a nagging inner voice tells me 
Geppetto was a TOYmaker not a SHOEmaker?) - but the name would appear 
to be a double-barrelled pun (and is thus not the only one of its 
kind in Pynchon).

PS - I bought a replacement copy of _V._ yesterday (the old one was 
disintegrating from many, many readings). Liked the understatement in 
the blurbs on the back cover: "A quite brilliant debut novel."

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"