P's Bartleby

[wood jim]

Dave Monroe with P's letter: 

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.

Quite trivial. A play on words/names. 
I believe Mr. Pynchon. He's only playing. 
Pierce? Does P want us to search out Pierce. 
To go to the OED? To discover that Pierce
means smart mouthed prick, if, if we can 
only fiure out that he is here playing with 
Gaelic? I doubt it. Pierce is a big name in American
history. That's enough isn't it? Inverarity? Another
pun? Inveracity? variety? A collection of lies? An
Estate? That's worth looking up in the AHD. Estate: A
landed property, usually of considerable size. The
whole of one's possessions, especially all the
property and debts left by one at death.  The nature
and extent of an owner's rights with respect to land
or other property.  Social position or rank,
especially of high order.  A major social class, such
as the nobility, the commons, or the clergy, formerly
possessing distinct political rights.  See STATE. A a
variety of lies about the state of a america? Does
remind me that Melville, after he had failed with his
fictions, had a long period of silence. He returned
with Bartleby. Melville failed, his fiction didn't
sell. Moby-Dick was a failure. As were all of his
"metaphysical" fictions. 
Melville said (paraphrase), I want to tell the black
truth about man and America and I can't help myself,
so I will write the kind of books that are destined to
fail. 

Bartleby was a sucess and Melville's so called
magazine fictions helped him pay the bills and write 
more books and and some great poems. 

PS The new and improved and tatooed Norton Critical
Edition of M-D is coming to a book store near you,
mid-september is the rumor. 

BTW, critics, quite recently, as more and more
Melville stuff is being made available, not only to
the "select few" {PL},   ( for example, Milton's PL,
Melville's edition and his bible, Melville knew the
bible chapter and verse), have discovered what many
had argued long ago, some even when the books were
published, that  he named names and satiried and
insulted people. 


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