[pynchon] against the day

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Ouch!  You're right.  Good find.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: alan jc <ajcauk at yahoo.co.uk>


> On page 224 suddenly a factual error glares out at me; something i 
>have never encountered knowingly before in a Pynchon novel. His 
>novels, that i have been invultuated by and sometimes loved, seem to 
>involve many alternate realities/dimensions but adhere to historical 
>verification i.e. one searches by googlies and one comes up with the 
>goodies.
> Yashmeen Halfcourt speaking in Lew Brasnight in 1903
> " On this island, ' she went on, 'as you will have begun to notice, 
>no one ever speaks plainly. Whether it's Cockney rhyming codes or the 
>crosswords in the newspaper-all English, spoken or written, is looked 
>down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted. Nothing 
>beyond. Any who may come to feel betrayed by them, insulted, even 
>hurt, even greviously, are simply 'taking it too seriously.' The 
>English exercise their eyebrows and smile and tell you it's 'irony' or 
>'a bit of fun,' for it's only combinations of letters after all, isn't 
>it."

> Crosswords only appeared in the newspaper in 1913 and that was in the 
>New York Times. 
>