Names in AtD - Frank
Matthew Cissell
macissell at yahoo.es
Tue May 7 04:33:00 CDT 2013
That things can be that simple doesn't mean they are. When people say "I jes doan like it, it's that simple" it is not that simple because taste and preference are anything if simple matters.
There is a prominent P-lister who refers to TP as Grovey (protagonist from The Secret Integration) and this seems to me very accurate, not that I think TSI is biographical or that TP veils himself with characters but it has a lot to support it.
I see the character of Kit as having a social trajectory closer to TP's, although to really draw that out would require far too much for it to be presented here on the list. It will end up as a monograph at best.
ciao
mc otis
________________________________
From: Phillip Greenlief <pgsaxo at pacbell.net>
To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
Sent: Monday, May 6, 2013 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: Names in AtD - Frank
of all the characters in AtD, frank seems the most likely to resemble pynchon. frank allows thomas to be frank.
yes, things can be that simple sometimes ... or it's very possible that it is meeeeee that is simple.
Phillip Greenlief
1075 Aileen Street Apt B
Oakland, CA 94608
510-501-7110
________________________________
From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Mon, May 6, 2013 2:50:33 AM
Subject: Names in AtD - Frank
We know that the names that TP uses are anything but inconsequential, they point to something if only we take the time to think about what. In AtD most of the Traverses have names that are less than common and would seem to have some greater value than a mere label for a character (Webb, Lake, Reef, etc) but then there is Frank, a very common name. Why?
I can't claim to have THE answer but I have an idea. First, we know that the book is composed in large part by drawing on a wide range of genres (what have been deemed "narrative clusters") and that these literary echoes are important for the book. Clearly one theme is the working class family and the social literature it belongs to.
So I looked at Raymond Williams' Writing in Society, specifically The Ragged Arsed Philanthropists. It's about the novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, written by an Irishman and rejected by publishers for its ideological content, whose protagonist is
named... you guessed it, Frank.
Does anybody want to add to this? Any other ideas for the name Frank?
ciao
mc otis
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