IVIV (8): Scott Oof

[Dave Monroe]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:01 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:

>   "There were footfalls up the back steps and Scott Oof came in by
> way of the kitchen." (IV, Ch. 8, p. 115)
>
> Scott Oof
>
> Another inspired name. Scott Oof, as essentially the same character,
> is in Pynchon's 2009 novel Inherent Vice which takes place about 10 or
> 15 years before the events in Inherent Vice. Scott is the protagonist
> Doc Sportello's cousin.
>
> http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3#Page_23
>
>   Outside of this stylistic difference, Pynchon’s latest follows in
> the footsteps of The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland, literally and
> figuratively. In Lot 49, Oedipa Maas’ complicated route to discovering
> why she became Inverarity’s executrix occurs slightly before Prairie
> Wheeler’s instigating mother shoots some controversial films that send
> her family underground in Vineland, which in turn occurs before Doc
> Sportello’s investigation of the Mickey Wolfmann disappearance and the
> mystery of the Golden Fang ship. These are not exactly connections but
> are too close to be disconnected, and Pynchon hints at further hidden
> continuities. It is the side characters who most strongly link these
> narratives: Oedipa’s former husband-turned-“zombie”-turned-music
> mogul, Wendall “Mucho” Maas, is friends and colleagues with musician
> Scott Oof, Doc’s cousin and a friend of Prairie’s father Zoyd, who is
> famous for his transfenestration acts.
>
> http://www.criticalflame.org/fiction/0909_ruggiero.htm
>
> Why inspired?  And no Seaman Bodine sightings?  Help!  Thanks!

>From Patrick J. Hurley, Pynchon Character Names: A Dictionary
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008):

Oof, Scott (Vine)

   Oof is a comic onomotopoeic name with no special significance for
this character.  [p. 114]

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3458-9

Okay, finally have that one back @ hand, so ...