Sportello - Door/Window/Doc/Pynchon

[John Carvill]

Just continuing to mull some of the possible autobiographical angles
in IV. And browsing the archives, eg.:

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0908&msg=139918&sort=thread

Was the following ever mentioned re. the meaning of Sportello? If so,
apologies. If not, I'm just sort of filing it here for future
reference, rather than claiming any big revelations, but.......

A 'sportello' is a door or a window, or a counter, eg where you buy a
train ticket, right? A door, or a window, or a door which is also a
window. Well, didn't Pynchon's apartment on Manhattan Beach have a
split door, like a stable door, ie. it had a door which was also a
window? Seems so. See here:

http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_biography.html

"Ervin was always generous. He gave no hint of being a snit, a snob,
or even a literati. When you knocked on the bottom half of the wood
Dutch-door of his apartment (the top was normally open to the
elements), Ervin would greet you with a genuine smile and fling the
bottom half of the door open with a welcome".

Very strong autobiographical clue there, surely? Doc's name means
door/window, and he lives where Pynchon used to live, and when Pynchon
lived there his place had a dutch/stable door, a door that was also a
window, a Sportello in fact.

Any possibility that Pynchon (a) was unaware of the door/window
meaning of Sportello, and/or (b) forgot the fact that his old place -
which he's waxing nostalgic about - had that style of door? Unlikely
eh?

In fact, now I think of it, that kind of Dutch door was also mentioned
in Vineland, wasn't it? When Zoyd (who is a lot like Doc) first met
Hector:

"Down here, a long screened porch faced out over flights of rooftops
descending to the beach. Access from the street was by way of a Dutch
door, whose open top half, that long-ago evening, had come to frame
Hector under a ragged leather hat with a wide brim, peering through
sunglasses, the darkening Pacific in pale-topped crawl below."

Kute, no?