SLSL "A Small Rain"

[jbor]

It's more the way that his name is constructed that I was getting at,
although "Pig" does have his moments in the novels as well, and there's
similarly a sense that Levine has squandered his education and doesn't
really possess the capacity or desire for self-reflection, as you point out.
(In fact it's his Jewishness which seems to provide the impetus for his -
potential or partial, at least - reinvigoration. Cf. the paragraph at 48-49)
Levine is the prototypical Pynchonian schlemihl character I think, from whom
both Benny Profane and Tyrone Slothrop eventually derive.

best


on 30/11/02 6:50 PM, Paul Mackin at paul.mackin at verizon.net wrote:

> I might see some of the similarties Rob did but do find problems as
> well. Pig sure never went to  CCNY. Hard to think Lardass did. I knew
> more than one Pig in the course of my "navy career" and have also known
> CCNY grads.  Never met a Lardass,  Not conclusive I know but to go on
> Pynchon was making use of what he had, which was a knowledge of barracks
> (same as shipboard) life including how enlisted men and lower rank
> officers talk, plus the literary lore that goes with being an English
> major.  How to economically fuse these two strengths into a short piece
> of fiction. Lardass was the answer even if (in my opinion) quite a
> synthetic one. I'm sure Pynchon already knew enough this early in his
> young life  to include a Bodine (Pig is a common type in the military)
> but a Pig would not have economically and conveniently fit. It's just
> too bad that there was no Baedeker for small southern state colleges and
> their coeds. I'm not knocking the story.  As I say he worked with what
> he had.
> 
> P.
>