Blodgett Waxwing and Pale Fire

[David Morris]

These days American politics couldn't be more Pynchonian.

David Morris

On Thursday, January 26, 2017, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why are you guys talking Pynchon on my American politics listserv
>
> On Jan 26, 2017, at 3:35 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','sundayjb at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
> 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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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-pyn
>> chon-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
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
>>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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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