re. What's in a name?

[rj]

tf
> YUP! But are there some he wants to play with?  Just as
> Pynchon will bring in historical companies, use their proper
> names, whole and complete, even give their addresses,
> histories etc., he will invent fictional companies and
> addresses that reference things not in the text, but out of
> the text.  We look them up all the time. He will bends
> things, with poetic license, like the yew tree, or the
> architecture where the rockets are built and he invents
> characters, fictional characters with fictional names. What
> is an example of this other than Geli? Other wise we will
> get on to "Where does Pirate fit? Where does this fictional
> character fit or that half name fit?" And we can go on and
> on here, unless we deal either with Geli Tripping or, and
> this might be better,  a different example of a fictional
> character that we can maybe make more progress with??? 

Well, let's go with Yoyodyne as Boeing for one. I'd say a fear of legal
recriminations might have inspired this particular change because Mr P
is fictionalising (scurrilously so) and from personal experience rather
than utilising facts from the public domain as he does with, say, Shell
and IGFarben and Petrochemie in *GR*. It's a great change, it adds to
the satire, and I didn't even realise the onomatapoeia of the name
Boeing (boing!) until I realised the connection. But, it's also very
obvious.

best