Schlemihl

[Dave Monroe]

I have no small interest in the lineage of the schlemiel myself, though, properly speaking, I'm not one, remaining thoroughly pessimistic from disaster to disaster (any Yiddish and/or German term for that?  Reminds me, also need that Austrian-German idiom referring to something you wish you would have said at a given time but only thought of later
...).  I'm guessing that, speaking specifically of Tyrone Slothrop, it's safe to mention Voltaire's Candide here as well, maybe yr average (or even yr above average) Spanish picaro (although I seem to recall them travelling more often in pairs, the picaresque seems often to come up in re: Samuel Beckett's dyspeptic duos, Vladimir and Estragon,
Mercier and Camier, whoever), the eponymous pilgrim of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, perhaps even, more contemporaneously with Pynchon, say, Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim (Slaughterhouse-Five), the eponymous goat-boy of John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy, anyone else?  Ignatius Reilly of John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces might well have ben
in there, had it been published in JKT's lifetime, but ... well, love those lovable losers, is all, and am happy to have a few references ...

Stefan Matzig wrote:

> In German, a Schlemihl (Schlemiel) is an unlucky fellow who despite a string of personal desasters remains patient, even optimistic. It's this characteristic that makes Schweijk a Schlemihl. Also see Adalbert von Chamisso's phantastic novella of the man who sells his shadow to the devil, "Peter Schlemihl's wundersame Geschichte" (ca. 1810). St.
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von:    davemarc [SMTP:davemarc at panix.com]
> Gesendet am:    Donnerstag, 10. August 2000 05:13
> An:     Pynchlist
> Betreff:        Re: Schlemihl
>
> Get ready for a paradigm shift, KXX.  According to Chapman's American Slang,
> it means "A stupid person; fool; oaf; esp, a naive person often victimized."
> You know--like a schmendrick.
>
> d.