SLSL "TSR" - frogs, Levine, Buttercup

[Dave Monroe]

The New York Times Book Review
17 July 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://web.archive.org/web/20000824131346/pynchonfiles.com/cohn.htm

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_cohen.html

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

--- James Kyllo <jkyllo at clara.net> wrote:
> 
> It's so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning....

But, seriously, everything's worth mentioning, James. 
It's all good.  Not everyone's an operetta and/or
Mongolian history buff here, is s/he?  A-and, hey, if
somebody did a little something or another with it
along the way, well, worth mentioning that as well. 
Not everyone's a Charles Hollander buff, either, so
... no, again (and again and again ...), good guests
AND good hosts, y'all shouldn't be taunting each other
across the bar, at very least ...

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