Curdy Buff

[gumbo at fuse.net]

Discussing "our manly Zemblan customs" (p 208):

"...everywhere along the road powerful temptations stood at attention. [Charles] succumbed to them from time to time, then every other day, then several times daily--especially during the robust regime of Harfar Baron of Shalksbore, a phenomenally endowed young brute (whose family name, "knave's farm," is the most probable derivation of "Shakespeare." Curdy Buff--as Harfar was nicknamed by his admirers--had a huge escort of acrobats and bareback riders, and the whole affair got rather out of hand so that Disa, upon unexpectedly returning from a trip to Sweden, found the palace transformed into a circus."

The passage suggests that the nickname had something to do with the endowment, or what old Curdy did with it, filtered through Nabokov's well-known attitudes on the subject. I note that in addition to the familiar cheesy connection, curd is also a name for the edible part of the cauliflower plant. If that helps.

Don Corathers 


> 
> From: Malignd <malignd at yahoo.com>
> Date: 2003/07/23 Wed PM 12:31:50 EDT
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Curdy Buff
> 
> Off on my own meaningless tangent--
> 
> I was noting in the Index that the "Zemblan patriot"
> Baron Harfar Shalksbore was known as Curdy Buff. 
> Aside from Curdy Buff's being funny, I was wondering
> what connections might come from the joining as a name
> of "curdy" and "buff," particularly in relation to
> Shalksbore, begging to be read as "Shakespeare."
> 
> Googling Curdy Buff led to: 
> 
> http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Lx0
> 
> --which, as it turned out, contained a somewhat
> simple-minded discussion of Hamlet's "To be or not to
> be" soliloquy:  the name of one poster being Joseph S.
> Curdy and another poster writing " I think I am
> related to Hamlet! And I have pics of him in the
> buff."  
> 
> Whatever that might mean.
> 
> This last poster signed him(her)self Zor Ko
> (shackoflove at hotmail.com).  
> 
> A Zemblan name if ever I've heard one.
> 
> 
> 
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