Pynchon's names and what they might mean

[rj]

> I find it interesting that,  in trying to put down the Thelonious Monk
> essay (www.achilles.net/~howardm/pynchon.html), 

doug, you misread me, I didn't put the essay down.

> rj seems to validate the
> very procedure he earlier rejects.

doug, you misread me, I don't validate the very procedure I reject.

> To wit: he found something resonant in
> the essay, went to an extra-textual reference to check it out (Jules
> Siegel's essay), and found that Siegel reported TRP was a huge Monk fan.

Not quite like that, I assure you. I read the essay and thought that it
might be valid that Theolonius Monk inspired Mr P's characterisation of
the fictional character McLintic Sphere in his novel *V.* Where I
diverged was in the backward tracing of this, the attempt to say that
the portrait of the fictional character McLintic Sphere in Mr P's novel
*V.* is a veiled biography of the jazz musician Theolonius Monk. It's
back to front. I stumbled on the Siegel piece several months later, long
after I'd glanced at the online essay. But I'd be willing to bet that
information from this article provided the basis for Mr Hollander's
theory in the online essay, however

> In other words, rj  took a half-name (Sphere) from the text,

doug, you misread me. I took the full name of the fictional character,
McLintic Sphere, from the text.

> checked it out
> in an extra-textual resource (Siegel), and found enough evidence to say TRP
>"may have used" Monk as the model for his jazzman.

This secondary reinforcement came much later, as I've said. I was
willing to accept the thesis that Theolonius Monk had served as the
basis for the characterisation of the fictional McLintic Sphere on the
strength of Mr Hollander's essay.

> If rj  is willing to say
> that Thelonious Sphere Monk may be the model for McClintic Sphere, why not
> admit as valid other instances tracing Pynchon character half-names to see
> where they lead and how they might fit in a close reading of a Pynchon
> text?

Here you conflate two different procedures. A stereotype, a projected
archetype, whether of a jazz musician or a Nazi, provides a model for a
fictional character, and from this the character's *fictional* history
in the novel emerges as a product of the author's imagination. Where
Theolonius Monk might have been the starting point for Pynchon's
fictional characterisation, and the use of the name "Sphere" (which,
btw, has many other pertinent metaphorical connections too I might add)
may well be a recognition of Mr P's appreciation of Monk's music, and of
the inspiration he provided the author, it is not valid in my opinion to
place a sheet of graph paper over McLintic Sphere's characterisation in
the novel and say that it is the author's rendition of the real man's
life, or make any sort of political or other assumptions on this basis.

> Why accept the validity of the process in the case of Monk and reject
> it when it leads to Hitler (and to the villain that Pynchon may be
> representing with Pudding)?

doug, you misread me. This is not what I have done at all. Pudding =
Hitler is just plain dumb. 

best