VLVL2 (1): Names in VL [WAS Annotations (pp. 10-11)]

[Tim Strzechowski]

> think it was Brad Leithauser who made the point in a contemporary review
> that there were a lot of silly names in _VL_, distracting and often
> pointless.
>

And not to discount the various meanings that *can* be derived from the
characters in VL, I find Pynchon's use of names in general kind of
distracting.  For me at least, _V._ is one of the biggest examples of how
names can almost be "distracting" to the story itself (I'm just not a fan of
P's first novel, yet).  I've often had the impression that Pynchon's use of
names seems to be pretty well "anti-literary"* in that he takes pains to
fashion characters whose names are either just plain silly, or based on
puns, or foreign words, or portmanteau words, or just plain historically
accurate.  In fact, I can't think of too many other authors whose canon
consists of such a wide disparity of methods for creating character names.

Tim

* by this, I mean that most authors tend to utilize a particular method for
creating their characters' names, normally based on word-combinations which
achieve a particular image related to that character (as one example).
Pynchon, however, seems to use any/all ways of creating names, and not all
of which necessarily contribute to an "understanding" of the character.