fiction and reality

[Tod Mahony]

>
>In regard to Andrew's MDMD note about the convergences of "reality" and
>"fiction" in TRP's work,  I just started dipping into Sobel's LONGITUDE
>and came immediately against the name Sir Clowdisley (which I imagine
>being pronounced "clouds-ly") Shovell.  Add to that the incident in
>which
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>[SPOILER?]
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>he hanged a crew member for keeping his own navigational notes and trying
to
>warn the officer that his fleet was offcourse--then promptly crashed and
>sank more than half of his crew--strikes me as a particularly
Pynchonesque
>incident!  Life is stranger . . .etc.
>
>
>Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>


...and out of the thousands (!) of men on the ships that went down, wasn't
Sir Clowdisley Shovell one of the TWO who were washed ashore alive?  Only
to be killed by the woman who found him -- she wanted a ring he was
wearing.  That historic episode is a little bit gratuitous even for
Pynchon.

Tod