Pynchon's misdirection

[Ande]

Tore--Nice Post.

I always read the "double" meaning in Nefastis as the obvious "nee 
Faustus" also known as Dr. John---- which becomes the strains of Uncle 
John's Band....by the river side, got some things to talk about, beside 
the rising tide....Uncle John being John Cohen of "New Lost City 
Ramblers"--- (and my schoolgirl Latin: "dies nefastus publicus"...)

And I love absquatulate, again schoolgirl Latin becomes: Absque labore 
nihil "nothing without labour"

Ande
/"because it is fun"/



Tore Rye Andersen wrote: (among other things...)

> Pynchon does certainly use arcane words ("absquatulate" anyone?), but 
> again, we shouldn't be so busy speculating what they might carry of 
> hidden implications that we don't notice what's there. Case in point: 
> There is in fact NO character in Lot 49 by the name of Nefandis. There 
> is an inventor called John Nefastis (introduced on page 85 of the 
> first edition), and you must be thinking of him. Charles Hollander 
> also notices Nefastis in his "Inferno"-essay:
>
> "Indeed, one character is named John Nefastis, “nefastus” meaning 
> nefarious, and a cognate, “nefandous” meaning not to be spoken of."
>
> Now, the connections Hollander makes here I find absolutely sound: He 
> starts by focusing on the name itself, and after making a good point 
> he goes on to additional meanings. This is good, this is as it should 
> be. Sometimes, however, Hollander and other readers move on a bit to 
> quickly for my taste from the surface to the hidden depths. This may 
> prevent one from noticing what is actually there on the surface. Being 
> too eager to decrypt the codes of Pynchon's fiction may be an obstacle 
> to paying attention to what the texts actually say. It may, for 
> instance, lead one to see characters that aren't really there 
> (Nefandis) and ignore the ones that ARE there (Nefastis), right on the 
> surface. Quests for hidden grails are fine, and I truly love to 
> discover hidden meanings in Pynchon, but we shouldn't forget the 
> obvious stuff. Otherwise it - and allow me to quote you here - "will 
> just fly by unnoticed. All the better for the surface reader."
>
> Best,
>
> Tore
>
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