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From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 11:01 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3397
>
> pynchon-l-digest Saturday, July 12 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3397
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 11:26:34 +0200
> From: Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx@freebel.net>
> Subject: Pynchon & Nabokov: 2 questions
>
> The much discussed P-N connection can be divided into two different
> questions:
> 1. Has mr. Pynchon been following a prof. Nabokov course?
> 2. Can we trace some literary influence.
>
> The second question may be answered in the following months. The first
> one has been answered for by Charles Hollander in his Pynchon Notes
> article on Slow Learner (Charles Hollander, "Pynchon's Politics: The
> Presence of an Absence", in: Pynchon Notes, 26-27, spring-fall 1990, pp.
> 5-59.)
>
> [begin of excerpt]
>
> "Was there a direct, personal relationship between twenty-year-old
> Pynchon and fifty-seven-year-old Nabokov? Probably not. While it has
> become axiomatic among some scholars to say Nabokov was Pynchon's
> comparative literature, checking a bootlegged copy of Pynchon's
> transcript (albeit one that may have been tampered with) against the
> course listings for the years in question yields no evidence Pynchon
> ever enrolled in any of Nabokov's courses for credit. Pynchon enrolled
> in neither Literature 311-312, "Masters of European Fiction," nor
> Literature 325-326, "Russian Literature in Translation." Of course,
> Pynchon might have audited Nabokov, off the record. Indeed, a member of
> Pynchon's undergraduate cohort, Robert H. Eisenman (B. A. Cornell,
> 1958), now Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Cal State
> Long Beach, said in a recent telephone interview: "Everybody who was
> anybody audited the legendary Nabokov lectures, to hear the showman on
> Emma, Anna, and Gregor Samsa. It was a very large lecture hall with no
> attendance monitors, so auditors caught individual lectures as they
> pleased. Pynchon would have known that."
>
> Because Pynchon uses techniques outlined in Nabokov's courses, and
> collected in his Lectures On Literature (1980), some have assumed that,
> if Pynchon never took any of Nabokov's courses, the two must have known
> each other personally. Actually, they did have one mutual friend,
> Herbert Gold, who offered Pynchon and FariЯa access to a New York
> literary connection, James Silberman at Dial magazine. But that was
> months after Nabokov had left Cornell to live abroad. In fact, Gold was
> Nabokov's replacement as writer in residence, so he could not have
> introduced Pynchon: Gold and Nabokov were not at Cornell at the same
> time. According to Andrew Field's VN: The Life and Art of Vladimir
> Nabokov (1986): "The core of the serious Nabokov cult on the campus
> consisted of . . . Richard FariЯa . . . and Thomas Pynchon, though
> evidently there was no personal acquaintance between Pynchon and
> Nabokov." Furthermore, in more than thirty years, no photo, letter or
> magazine article by any third party giving an eyewitness account of a
> meeting between Nabokov and Pynchon at a class, reading, department
> function, or purely social gathering has surfaced. Since such
> remembrances of celebrities past would be just the thing for the Cornell
> Alumni News, for example, I assume none exist. [2]
>
> Yet Nabokov was an enormous presence around Ithaca, what with the Paris
> edition of Lolita (1955) raising such a ruckus in those years, even to
> the extent, Field tells us, that the Cornell Book and Bowl Society read
> it aloud, with FariЯa one of the narrators. Nabokov was such a presence
> that Pynchon could hardly have avoided his influence."
>
> [end of excerpt]
>
> Interesting footnote, by the way:
>
> "For dispelling the notion that Pynchon studied with Nabokov, I am
> indebted to Steve Tomaske, literary sleuth, who first called the nearly
> complete lack of hard evidence to my attention. Pynchon's apprenticeship
> seems to have been "established" by an offhand comment in a 1966
> interview. Did Nabokov remember Pynchon from among his hundreds of
> students? No. But Madame Nabokov, who graded the Professor's papers,
> remembered someone, perhaps Pynchon who had unusual handwriting.
> (Pynchon is said to blockletter personal notes, as do legions of the
> cohort who were taught handwriting in that period.) This unverified
> "perhaps" became the axiom on which the legend has flourished."
>
> continues at
> http://www.vheissu.org/art/art_eng_SL_hollander.htm#chap_3
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Michel.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 08:02:19 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Pynchon & Nabokov: 2 questions
>
> Thanks, Michel. It's good to remember that Hollander,
> Tomaske, and other scholars have done such good work
> to uncover available facts to dispell various rumors
> and myths that have accumulated around Pynchon.
>
> - --- Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx@freebel.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > Herbert Gold, who offered Pynchon and FariЯa access
> > to a New York
> > literary connection, [...]
>
> Gold is the father of a close friend, I met him at her
> wedding back in the very early '80s. A nice guy and
> it was no surprise to learn, years ago, that he had
> helped Pynchon.
>
> > (Pynchon is said to blockletter personal notes, as
> > do legions of the
> > cohort who were taught handwriting in that period.)
>
> Still a common practice among undergrads by the time I
> made it to college in '70, and among my brothers
> friends at Stanford.
>
> >a member of
> >Pynchon's undergraduate cohort, Robert H. Eisenman
> >(B. A. Cornell,
> >1958), now Chair of the Department of Religious
> >Studies at Cal State
> >Long Beach
>
> Eisenman is the author of a fascinating book that was
> published several years ago, _James the Brother of
> Jesus_, a monumental tome that explores in great
> detail how St. Paul "rewrote" the early Christian
> story to make it more palatable for a Gentile
> audience.
>
>
>
>
> >
>
>
> michel.ryckx@freebel.net writes:
>
> > <<"Was there a direct, personal relationship between twenty-year-old
> > Pynchon and fifty-seven-year-old Nabokov? Probably not. ... [and all the
rest]>>
> >
> It's an odd cite, isn't it, this excerpt.
>
> These first two sentences (above) are probably the only thing that seem
> certain. The rest of the excerpt continually shores up then pulls away
whatever
> evidence it hopes to present. There's no indication in Pynchon's
transcript
> that he took Nabokov's courses, but the transcript is unreliable; and "of
> course," Pynchon might have audited Nabokov. Etc. Then in a footnote,
he says,
> astonishingly, that the notion that Pynchon studied with Nabokov has been
> dispelled, then repeats the story about Vera Nabokov, only altered, saying
she "
> remembered someone, perhaps Pynchon, who had unusual handwriting."
>
> This is a distortion of what was reported in a more authoritative
source:
> Alfred Appel's interviews with the Nabokovs in September 1966 at Montreux.
> The pertinent question and answer in full:
>
> Appel:
>
> What is your opinion of Joyce's parodies? Do you see any difference in
the
> artistic effect of scenes such as the maternity hospital and the beach
> interlude with Gerty Macdowell? Are you familiar with the work of
younger American w
> riters who have been influenced by both you and Joyce, such as Thomas
Pynchon
> (A Cornellian, Class of '59, who surely was in Literature 312), and do you
> have any opinion on the current ascendancy of the so-called parody-novel
(John
> Barth, for instance)?
>
> VN:
>
> The literary parodies in the Maternal Hospital chapter are on the whole
> jejunish. Joyce seems to have been hampered by the general sterilized
tone he
> chose for that chapter, and this somehow dulled and monotonized the inlaid
skits.
> On the other hand, the frilly novelette parodies in the Masturbation
scene
> are highly successful; and the sudden junction of its cliches with the
> fireworks and tender sky of real poetry is a feat of genius. I am not
familiar with
> the works of the two other writers you mention.*
>
> To which Appel adds the following footnote:
>
> Mrs. Nabokov, who graded her husband's examination papers, did remember
> Pynchon, but only for his "unusual" handwriting: half printing, half
script.
>
> It is, of course, possible that Vera was mistaken; it was many years later
> and there were many student papers. But what she said was that she
remembered
> Pynchon, not "someone, perhaps Pynchon." All of which is to say that
> Hollander seems to draw a conclusion his own evidence fails to support.
>
> I would suggest an answer that results out of posing the question
> differently, which is, why on earth would Pynchon or any other fledgling
writer, like
> Farina, pass up any opportunity to expose his budding talents and
sensibilities
> to Nabokov? Asked that way, I find it very difficult to believe Pynchon
> wasn't in Nabokov's class -- officially, auditing, or sneaking in with a
bag over
> his head -- as often and as regularly as possible. He'd have been a
meathead
> not to.
>
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3397
> ********************************
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to waste@waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 11:01 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3397
>
> pynchon-l-digest Saturday, July 12 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3397
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 11:26:34 +0200
> From: Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx@freebel.net>
> Subject: Pynchon & Nabokov: 2 questions
>
> The much discussed P-N connection can be divided into two different
> questions:
> 1. Has mr. Pynchon been following a prof. Nabokov course?
> 2. Can we trace some literary influence.
>
> The second question may be answered in the following months. The first
> one has been answered for by Charles Hollander in his Pynchon Notes
> article on Slow Learner (Charles Hollander, "Pynchon's Politics: The
> Presence of an Absence", in: Pynchon Notes, 26-27, spring-fall 1990, pp.
> 5-59.)
>
> [begin of excerpt]
>
> "Was there a direct, personal relationship between twenty-year-old
> Pynchon and fifty-seven-year-old Nabokov? Probably not. While it has
> become axiomatic among some scholars to say Nabokov was Pynchon's
> comparative literature, checking a bootlegged copy of Pynchon's
> transcript (albeit one that may have been tampered with) against the
> course listings for the years in question yields no evidence Pynchon
> ever enrolled in any of Nabokov's courses for credit. Pynchon enrolled
> in neither Literature 311-312, "Masters of European Fiction," nor
> Literature 325-326, "Russian Literature in Translation." Of course,
> Pynchon might have audited Nabokov, off the record. Indeed, a member of
> Pynchon's undergraduate cohort, Robert H. Eisenman (B. A. Cornell,
> 1958), now Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Cal State
> Long Beach, said in a recent telephone interview: "Everybody who was
> anybody audited the legendary Nabokov lectures, to hear the showman on
> Emma, Anna, and Gregor Samsa. It was a very large lecture hall with no
> attendance monitors, so auditors caught individual lectures as they
> pleased. Pynchon would have known that."
>
> Because Pynchon uses techniques outlined in Nabokov's courses, and
> collected in his Lectures On Literature (1980), some have assumed that,
> if Pynchon never took any of Nabokov's courses, the two must have known
> each other personally. Actually, they did have one mutual friend,
> Herbert Gold, who offered Pynchon and FariЯa access to a New York
> literary connection, James Silberman at Dial magazine. But that was
> months after Nabokov had left Cornell to live abroad. In fact, Gold was
> Nabokov's replacement as writer in residence, so he could not have
> introduced Pynchon: Gold and Nabokov were not at Cornell at the same
> time. According to Andrew Field's VN: The Life and Art of Vladimir
> Nabokov (1986): "The core of the serious Nabokov cult on the campus
> consisted of . . . Richard FariЯa . . . and Thomas Pynchon, though
> evidently there was no personal acquaintance between Pynchon and
> Nabokov." Furthermore, in more than thirty years, no photo, letter or
> magazine article by any third party giving an eyewitness account of a
> meeting between Nabokov and Pynchon at a class, reading, department
> function, or purely social gathering has surfaced. Since such
> remembrances of celebrities past would be just the thing for the Cornell
> Alumni News, for example, I assume none exist. [2]
>
> Yet Nabokov was an enormous presence around Ithaca, what with the Paris
> edition of Lolita (1955) raising such a ruckus in those years, even to
> the extent, Field tells us, that the Cornell Book and Bowl Society read
> it aloud, with FariЯa one of the narrators. Nabokov was such a presence
> that Pynchon could hardly have avoided his influence."
>
> [end of excerpt]
>
> Interesting footnote, by the way:
>
> "For dispelling the notion that Pynchon studied with Nabokov, I am
> indebted to Steve Tomaske, literary sleuth, who first called the nearly
> complete lack of hard evidence to my attention. Pynchon's apprenticeship
> seems to have been "established" by an offhand comment in a 1966
> interview. Did Nabokov remember Pynchon from among his hundreds of
> students? No. But Madame Nabokov, who graded the Professor's papers,
> remembered someone, perhaps Pynchon who had unusual handwriting.
> (Pynchon is said to blockletter personal notes, as do legions of the
> cohort who were taught handwriting in that period.) This unverified
> "perhaps" became the axiom on which the legend has flourished."
>
> continues at
> http://www.vheissu.org/art/art_eng_SL_hollander.htm#chap_3
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Michel.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 08:02:19 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Pynchon & Nabokov: 2 questions
>
> Thanks, Michel. It's good to remember that Hollander,
> Tomaske, and other scholars have done such good work
> to uncover available facts to dispell various rumors
> and myths that have accumulated around Pynchon.
>
> - --- Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx@freebel.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > Herbert Gold, who offered Pynchon and FariЯa access
> > to a New York
> > literary connection, [...]
>
> Gold is the father of a close friend, I met him at her
> wedding back in the very early '80s. A nice guy and
> it was no surprise to learn, years ago, that he had
> helped Pynchon.
>
> > (Pynchon is said to blockletter personal notes, as
> > do legions of the
> > cohort who were taught handwriting in that period.)
>
> Still a common practice among undergrads by the time I
> made it to college in '70, and among my brothers
> friends at Stanford.
>
> >a member of
> >Pynchon's undergraduate cohort, Robert H. Eisenman
> >(B. A. Cornell,
> >1958), now Chair of the Department of Religious
> >Studies at Cal State
> >Long Beach
>
> Eisenman is the author of a fascinating book that was
> published several years ago, _James the Brother of
> Jesus_, a monumental tome that explores in great
> detail how St. Paul "rewrote" the early Christian
> story to make it more palatable for a Gentile
> audience.
>
>
>
>
> >
>
>
> michel.ryckx@freebel.net writes:
>
> > <<"Was there a direct, personal relationship between twenty-year-old
> > Pynchon and fifty-seven-year-old Nabokov? Probably not. ... [and all the
rest]>>
> >
> It's an odd cite, isn't it, this excerpt.
>
> These first two sentences (above) are probably the only thing that seem
> certain. The rest of the excerpt continually shores up then pulls away
whatever
> evidence it hopes to present. There's no indication in Pynchon's
transcript
> that he took Nabokov's courses, but the transcript is unreliable; and "of
> course," Pynchon might have audited Nabokov. Etc. Then in a footnote,
he says,
> astonishingly, that the notion that Pynchon studied with Nabokov has been
> dispelled, then repeats the story about Vera Nabokov, only altered, saying
she "
> remembered someone, perhaps Pynchon, who had unusual handwriting."
>
> This is a distortion of what was reported in a more authoritative
source:
> Alfred Appel's interviews with the Nabokovs in September 1966 at Montreux.
> The pertinent question and answer in full:
>
> Appel:
>
> What is your opinion of Joyce's parodies? Do you see any difference in
the
> artistic effect of scenes such as the maternity hospital and the beach
> interlude with Gerty Macdowell? Are you familiar with the work of
younger American w
> riters who have been influenced by both you and Joyce, such as Thomas
Pynchon
> (A Cornellian, Class of '59, who surely was in Literature 312), and do you
> have any opinion on the current ascendancy of the so-called parody-novel
(John
> Barth, for instance)?
>
> VN:
>
> The literary parodies in the Maternal Hospital chapter are on the whole
> jejunish. Joyce seems to have been hampered by the general sterilized
tone he
> chose for that chapter, and this somehow dulled and monotonized the inlaid
skits.
> On the other hand, the frilly novelette parodies in the Masturbation
scene
> are highly successful; and the sudden junction of its cliches with the
> fireworks and tender sky of real poetry is a feat of genius. I am not
familiar with
> the works of the two other writers you mention.*
>
> To which Appel adds the following footnote:
>
> Mrs. Nabokov, who graded her husband's examination papers, did remember
> Pynchon, but only for his "unusual" handwriting: half printing, half
script.
>
> It is, of course, possible that Vera was mistaken; it was many years later
> and there were many student papers. But what she said was that she
remembered
> Pynchon, not "someone, perhaps Pynchon." All of which is to say that
> Hollander seems to draw a conclusion his own evidence fails to support.
>
> I would suggest an answer that results out of posing the question
> differently, which is, why on earth would Pynchon or any other fledgling
writer, like
> Farina, pass up any opportunity to expose his budding talents and
sensibilities
> to Nabokov? Asked that way, I find it very difficult to believe Pynchon
> wasn't in Nabokov's class -- officially, auditing, or sneaking in with a
bag over
> his head -- as often and as regularly as possible. He'd have been a
meathead
> not to.
>
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3397
> ********************************
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to waste@waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.