Blodgett Waxwing and Pale Fire

[John Bailey]

I think some Pynchon names are character tags and some misleading, meaning
we mistrust the Dickensian tradition of personality writ into one's very
naming. Laszlo Jamf (jive ass m-f) is what it says on the label, Tyrone
Slothrop (entropy sloth) is a cypher, but Bongo-Shaftsbury probably doesn't
warrant much deep thought.

On 27 Jan 2017 4:05 am, "Monte Davis" <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> AFAIK there's no record of Pynchon registered for a Nabokov class
> (although anyone could audit or drop in). OTOH, there's an alternate,
> unattested avenue:
>
> "[P] was taught for a spell by no less a figure than Vladimir Nabokov, who
> was on the staff of The Cornell Writer. The magazine published Pynchon’s
> first story “The Small Rain” in March 1959, shortly before he graduated.
> The two men were not, however, close, Pynchon later told a friend that
> Nabokov’s Russian accent was so thick, he could hardly understand a word he
> said. Nabokov, when asked about his famous ex-student, claimed not to
> remember him well, though his wife recalled his unusual handwriting, 'half
> printing, half script'. "
>
> <http://goog_161004631>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/thomas-
> pynchon-on-911-american-literature-s-greatest-conspiracy-theorist-finally-
> addresses-his-8830225.html
>
> Contact between a college literary magazine's faculty advisor and a
> one-shot contributor? I can imagine none, little, or much. The remark about
> N's accent could have come from sitting in on a lecture (other, enrolled
> students said the same) as readily as from personal contact.
>
> Re Oedipa and Oedipus: I find connection not through Freud, but through
> the plague on Thebes that prompted Oedipus to look back and discover whom
> he'd killed. There's Oedipa's initial anomie, a quest that reveals
> varieties of midcentury cultural sickness -- and. of course the riddle of
> the Sphinx to be answered. More, several of Oedipa's moments of heightened
> doubt and revelation are couched in the language of vision and blindness.
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 4:04 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Nabokov class rumour apparently came from Nabokov's wife, but there's
>> been a marked lack of evidence to back it up (from what I remember).
>> Blodgett Waxwing's specialty is forging documents, however, and the
>> Caserne Martiere he escaped from was a prison for (among other things)
>> theft and black market stuff, so perhaps it's a nod to the Pale Fire
>> narrator/editor's gift for literary grifting.
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 5:07 PM, Jade Becker <jbecker13 at georgefox.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Noticed on the first line of Nabokov's Pale Fire (the poem part), we've
>>> got a mention of "the shadow of the waxwing slain."
>>>
>>> Do you think this adds any meaning to our friend Blodgett Waxwing's
>>> name/role in Gravity's Rainbow? Or is it just for fun? I remember hearing
>>> rumors about Pynchon taking a class or two by Nabokov. I haven't finished
>>> Pale Fire yet, so perhaps the significance will become apparent.
>>>
>>> Or perhaps not. Unless there was something I missed about Mucho,
>>> Oedipa's name seemed to have little to do with the Complex.
>>>
>>> Jade-
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
>
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