Vladimir Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon at Cornell University

The critical relation between Vladimir Nabokov's and Thomas Pynchon's texts is often vexed: this is especially so because of the apparent contradiction between their similarity (for example, Ada's [1969] and Gravity's Rainbow's [1973] common blending of traditional storytelling modes and postmodern textuality) and their difference (Nabokov's interpretation as late modernist, Pynchon's as the progenitor of postmodernism). The fact that Pynchon attended Cornell University as an English major at the same time Nabokov taught there has prompted scholars focused on either author to search for"”and to imagine"”the possible evidence that might substantiate this fact, and to consider what further questions"”of influence and of engagement"”might be asked if it was possible to verify Pynchon's attendance at Nabokov's famous lectures. In this article, I reveal previously undocumented teaching material of Nabokov's from the Nabokov archive held in the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library, which clarifies Pynchon's and Nabokov's time together at Cornell and provides insight into how Nabokov studies and Pynchon studies have considered Pynchon's and Nabokov's supposed proximity. I ask what prestige is accrued in imagining a pedagogical relationship between Nabokov and Pynchon and offer a reading of the critical interest in this relationship that establishes that similar questions are considered in both authors' work.