Tanner on naming in TCOL49

[David Casseres]

I think that with Pynchon, a pretty good rule of thumb is "Unless it's
just  silly, every possible reading must be considered.  And if it
looks silly, stare at it hard."

On 10/6/06, David Casseres <david.casseres at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not over-reading at all. Mucho Maas is obviously Mucho Más, "A lot more."
>
> On 10/6/06, Martin Hinks <mhinks at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Apologies if this has been done before - I did search the archives - honest!
> >
> > Just read Tanner's not too shabby "Thomas Pynchon" for the first time
> > and was struck by an apparent oversight in the discussion of the names
> > of Oedipa and Mucho Maas.
> >
> > Tanner points out that Maas, among other things, could be
> > semi-homophonic with "my ass" as in "Oedipa My Ass" but seems to
> > overlook the fact that in Spanish the pronunciation of Maas will
> > equate to "más" meaning "more". This is also pointed to by the fact
> > that Mucho in Spanish is "much" or, for an apter play on the title, "a
> > lot" and therefore his entire name translates as "a lot more".
> >
> > Given the themes of the book is this not a more fitting analysis of the name?
> >
> > Or am I over-reading the situation?
> >
> > --
> > Martin Hinks
> > http://www.m-s-d.net
> >
> >
>