"ha, ha"

[kevin at limits.org]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> From: "Kato du Bois" <funkyrubber at hotmail.com>
> 
> 'tis true, 'tis true ... (Caulden's "ha, ha") ... thank you for reminding. 
> It's just one of those connections, messages, coincidences that I happened 
> to be reading "Dr. Faustroll" this summer, that put it at the tip of my 
> thought. I became interested in Jarry because of his influence on Marcel 
> Duchamp, in particular, and the Dadaist and Surrealist aesthetic, in 
> general. I would think that Pynchon, oweing something to Absurdists of the 
> past, would be familiar with at least some of Jarry's fiction or plays ... 
> whether an inocuous "ha, ha" is a nod or not is deflatable, but made me 
> smile nonetheless.

I think you thought of it because you'd been reading both
"Dr. Faustroll" and "Lot 49."  The "ha, ha" bit seems, to me, to be a play
on the uncomfortable laughter everyone has experienced when lunching with
buffoons at one point or another -- and Pynchon gets the double-whammy of
same orthography ("ha, ha"), different meanings (Roseman nervous, Oedipa
sardonic).  It's kind of like the "Genghis Cohen" crack that TRP wrote to
the NYT about -- too easy to come up with on his own to require sources,
layers, so forth.

FWIW, "ha-ha" and several variations of insincere laughter are used to
extraordinary effect in Heller's _Something Happened_, which was,
admittedly, not published until the mid-70's.

--Kevin T.