VV(18): Melanie L'Heuremaudit

[Dave Monroe]

"Melanie L'Heuremaudit ..." (V., Ch. 14, Sec. 1, p. 394)

A little under the weather today, forgot that I wanted to include J. Kerry 
Grant's note on "l'Heuremaudit" from his A Companion to V. (Athens: U of 
Georgia P, 2001), p. 172.  Citing Hanjo Berressem, "'V. in love': From the 
'Other Scene' to the 'New Scene,'" Pynchon Notes 18-19 (1986): 5-28 ...

"[Melanie's] last name translates as 'The Cursed Hour,'  time that denotes 
both a historical and a cultural framework--for Pynchon a growing 
decadence." (p. 7)

And John Dugdale, Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables of Power (New York: S. 
Martin's Press, 1990) ...

"Melanie is the often apocalyptic image of the dancer in Yeats; a merger of 
the dancer-doll of the Fourth 'Duino Elegy' with teh girl acrobat who is 
raised aloft in the Fifth." (pp. 96-7)

But it just occured to me that, spoken out loud, "Melanie l'Heuremaudit" 
sounds not unlike "Melody Harmony," esp. if said speaker has sinus problems 
...





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