Going boom

[John Bailey]

You'd need to include Fay Wray, Hitler, Shirley Temple etc. Everyone
seems to have run with the ~400 characters, though.

Which stands to reason as it makes the book sound as awesome as it is anyway.

On Sat, Sep 5, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> I, too, without your deeper measuring, did feel......400? That many???
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Sep 4, 2015, at 7:06 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Ahhhhhh... if you include real names dropped in but not given any
>> presence as "characters" then perhaps it does reach the 400 mark.
>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 5, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I think I have it. Interesting. goes back to the great early appreciator Tony Tanner from his early book in 1974.....HOWEVER, he wrote, " there are over 400 characters--or I should say names--in Gravity's Rainbow"....Harold Bloom said/ repeated it very early as well...
>>>
>>> Tanner meant Names! ..all those name-check allusions !
>>>
>>> Put " 400 characters.. gravity's Rainbow" into Google Books and see.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>>> On Sep 4, 2015, at 6:28 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Where did the mythical "there are around 400 characters in Gravity's
>>>> Rainbow" come from? I counted once and got 237. I'm probably off by a
>>>> few but overlooking 170 characters would require a serious blow to the
>>>> head.
>>>>
>>>> Would be interested to discover which piece of writing first conjured
>>>> the figure that so many have taken at face value since. Those kinds of
>>>> perpetuated factoids (even if wrong) are fascinating.
>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Sep 5, 2015 at 1:02 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> "Seven hundred and sixty pages of linguistic wizardry, Thomas
>>>>> Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow is a life-changing book."
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/read/going-boom/article7611853.ece
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, Doug Millison!
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>> -
>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l