CoL49 Group Reading - procreational note

[Michael Bailey]

So while Oedipa is having sex with Metzger, she meets Fallopian.

After Metzger departs (“the big lummox, she’s glad he backed out” to quote
sweet Betsy from Pike) having left her unimpregnated so far as any textual
indication - Koteks enters the picture.


Could be a reference to egg cycle. Fallopian and Koteks both appear
recurrently, don’t they?

Why would Pynchon choose these names?

A reminder of a monthly cycle she has to deal with while she is
perambulating?

A way to underline her femininity?

I like and agree with Mark’s comment that we can’t insist that character
names be excessively meaningful, so I don’t think it’s a way to connote the
passage of time exactly -
though of course if it were, it’d be about 2 weeks from The Scope to the
Yoyodyne meeting.


I saw on Qi a bit where they said the Italian anatomist Fallopian actually
named them “tubas” because of their shape, but the Italian plural was
“tube” - so eventually everyone just called them tubes.

Almost a post horn reference…