SLSL Intro "Two Amiable Fuzzy Creatures"

[Wasted Words]

--- David Morris <fqmorris at yahoo.com> wrote:

>Is a pocupine amiable and fuzzy?  

Nope. That's kinda like Peppy La Pew  saying he's
really a cat. 

I guess your kids are either too old or too young to
have introduced you to "A Porcupine Named Fluffy."

And Doug, 

I wonder if you aren't being a tad too generous. Has
Pynchon blundered here again? I can't think of how to
get a fuzzy and amiable creature from what the Ghost
says in Hamlet. Where does Pynchon get an amiable and
fuzzy porcupine/Porpentine? 

It seems odd that P bothers to burrow into Old
Teutonic to find his mole and fails to realize that
porcupine are not fuzzy. Doesn't it?  

A porcupine is not a fuzzy creature. It is a creature
with quills. 

In the animal kingdom and in literature generally the
porcupine is a creature with quills sticking up
fretfully or defensively. If the ghost who claims to
be Hamlet's father's spirit were to tell Hamlet of his
prison-house, Hamlet's hair would first unwind and
then stand on end.   Even Schopenhauer's famous
porcupines are more prickly than fuzzy. 

What the hell is P talking about? Goodness me, this
Introduction is very confusing. 

But it is his world and if he says that Porcupine are
fuzzy and amiable...but I don't think his story (even
as it is rewritten in V.) has a fuzzy and amiable
porcupine in it. 

Lions and Tiger and Bears? I think there is an Oz
(Baum) tale with a Porpentine. 












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