Strange Names

[Henry Musikar]

"So many characters -- say, Perkus' buddy, the ex-child star Chase
Insteadman, or his gal pal Oona Laszlo -- bear names right out of Pynchon
and Vonnegut, who are repeatedly cited in critical discussions of Chronic
City's crazies. Is this a code to crack?

``No, not at all,'' says Lethem. ``First of all, the grandfather of strange
character names is not Pynchon or Vonnegut. It's Dickens. That for me is the
root source. It's about making your characters both real and larger than
life at once. I have simple purposes. It's not something esoteric. I'm just
trying to make them memorable.

NAMES THAT STICK

``As a reader I always liked character names I could remember. I tend to
forget the majority of them. So when I would read Dickens or Pynchon they
would stick, and I liked that. I wanted to reciprocate that gesture. I think
it's a way of imparting an air of legend and myth to characters who have one
foot in reality and one foot in some kind of larger-than-life cartoon. That
again goes right back to Dickens. A very traditional novelist in a lot of
people's views; for better or worse, he is the enabler.''"

>From http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/arts/books/story/1331834.html 

Has there been much consideration of Dickensian influence evidenced in
P-works?

Henry Mu
Sr. IT Consultant
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/