"Pig"'s origins?

[Stanley Kozikowski]

Dear Professor Larsson:

I'm curious...given your sense of the obscurity of "pig" as in, say, Pig 
Bodine in V, do you (or does anyone else privy to this reply) think that 
Pynchon's sense of characterization is, if anything, HIGHLY SYMBOLIC?  
I'm a student in a course on Great Authors called "Shakespeare and 
Pynchon" here at Bryant College.  And since I do get some credit for this 
question's being able to solicit respones, hoping that this question is 
worthwhile, may I rephrase it to the DG:

I've noticed in V. COL49, and Vineland that most, if not all, of the 
characters seem, somehow, `partial' yet highly suggestive (or is it too 
suggestive) in how they come across.  I even wonder whether it can be 
said that TP writes one central character into each of his novels, which 
is a `composite' of all the characters in the book.  Does any of this 
make sense to anyone out there.

I would be grateful to here from any of you on the subject.

Thanks, in advance:

Karen Kaminski 

KKaminski at acad.bryant.edu
(401) 232-8380




On Sun, 17 Nov1~ 1996 LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU wrote:1~

> 
> I just yesterday picked up one of the Twin Cities weeklies, which
> contained an article on an etymologist at the University of Minnesota
> who is working on a new dictionary of word origins.  A picture and caption
> suggested that the word "pig" is of obscure origin, and my micro-copy
> of the OED confirms it: "Origin unknown."
> 
> Seems fitting.
> 
> Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>