AtDDtA1: Pugnax

[Dave Monroe]

"Ever since the Chums, during a confidential assignment in Our
Nation's Capital (see The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit), had
rescued Pugnax, then but a pup, from a furious encounter in the shadow
of the Wasjington Monument between rival packs of the District's wild
dogs ..." (AtD, Pt. I, p. 5)


The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit

This could be seen as a criticism of American Presidents present or
past, or perhaps the Vietnam War, which Pynchon himself opposed. The
Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child
creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's
wild dogs". The wild dogs equal both political parties?

Pugnax and the crew pee over the gondola. These "lavatorial assaults"
from the sky,which no one can "begin to try to record, much less
coordinate reports of" seem to be an allusion to the V-2 rockets which
are linked to Slothrop's erections in Gravity's Rainbow. That is, pee
from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious"
in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the
destruction in GR.

May also refer to President Bush, considering the Pynchon-authored
Amazon.com book description which included "With a worldwide disaster
looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate
greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in
high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be
inferred."

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3


Pugnax

The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight." Pugnax's fantastic
intelligence recalls another intelligent dog, the Learned English Dog
in Mason & Dixon. His manner of speech is also reminiscent of the
mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and members of PYNCHON-L have
speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from
the Wallace and Gromit claymation films.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3

The Ruff (Philomachus pugnax) is a medium-sized wader. It is usually
considered the only member of its genus Philomachus, but more recent
research (Thomas et al, 2004) indicates that the Broad-billed and
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper may belong there too....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruff

Ruff (Philomachus pugnax)

http://www.birdguides.com/html/vidlib/species/Philomachus_pugnax.htm

"'Rr-Rff-rff Rr-rr-rff-rrf-rrf,' replied Pugnax ...'" (AtD, Pt. I, pp. 5-6)

Cf. ...

"''Tis the Age of Reason, rrrf?'" (M&D, Ch. 3, p. 22)

>From Ronald Paulson, Popular and Public Art in the Age of Hogarth and
Fielding (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame UP, 1979), Ch. 5, "The English Dog,"
pp. 49-63 ...

   "Any study of 'The English Dog' must begin with William Empson's essay of
the same name in The Structure of Complex Words where he argued that a
conventional formula word like 'dog,' denoting mean or low, picks up a
second, more 'hearty' sense as 'a half-conscious protest against the
formulas, a means of keeping them at bay.' ..." (p. 49)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=60222

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60342

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60343

>From William Empson, The Structure of Complex  Words (Norfolk [!--note
that the L.E.D. is, anachronistically, a Norfolk Terrier], CN: New
Directions, 1951), Ch. 7, "The English Dog," pp. 158-74 ...

"It is the pastoral ideal, that there is a complete copy of the human
world among dogs...." (p. 168)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60353

>From Elizabeth Jane Wall Hinds, "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: The Play
of Species in Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, " Humans and Other Animals in
Eighteenth-Century British Culture: Representation, Hybridity, Ethics,
ed. Frank Palmieri (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 179-99 ..

"With Fang's response, along with the several appearnaces of hybrid
and metamorphosing animals and humans in Mason & Dixon, Pynchon
re-configures as he also represents eighteenth century species debayes
that were both scientifically progressive and anachronistically
enchanted...." (p. 179)

"Pynchon's hybrids comment on human and nonhuman animal alike to parse
the nature of 'nature,' in particular its victmization alongside the
'cultural' victimization of slavery and western expansion, as both
nature and culture were coming under the rule of science in the
eighteenth century...." (p. 180)

https://www.ashgate.com/shopping/title.asp?isbn=0%207546%205475%203

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112408

And see/cf. as well, e.g., ...

Every dog has his day, and a good dog just might have two days.
-—Johnny Copeland. Epigraph to Vineland

But can a dog, even a "good" one, have his year?

Thomas Pynchon is very fond of dogs and at least one dog appears in
each of his five novels....

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/