what's in a half name?

[Dave Monroe]

Intersetingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, this
seems largely to have disappeared online.  A "Letter
to the Editor," New York Times Book Review, July 17,
1966, pp. 24, 26 ...


To the Editor:

In a recent letter to the editor, Romain Gary asserts
that I took the name "Genghis Cohen" from a novel of
his to use in a novel of mine, "The Crying of Lot 49."
  Mr. Gary is totally in error. I took the name
Genghis Cohen from the name of Genghis Khan
(1162-1227), the well-known Mongol warrior and
statesman.  If Mr. Gary really believes himself to be
the only writer at present able to arrive at a play on
words this trivial, that is another problem entirely,
perhaps more psychiatric than literary, and I
certainly hope he works it out.

Thomas Pynchon,

New York City


http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/letter.html

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/cl49/GengCo.html


--- wood jim <jim33wood at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Genghis Khan? 
> 
> "Coen, without the h. Now if both of you ladies..."
> JR
> 
> But in CL49? Kahn. A German/Jew and didn't he build
> Boeing? Ford too. 
> 
> 
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