Character names in NivenPournelle's Inferno

[Amateur_Barbarian]

So I was again idly re-reading NivenPournelle’s sf parody of Dante, Inferno, and I was again stumped by the specific name given to the Dickensian clerk in Hell. They make a great point of having him give his name - Vincent MacMurdo. However, a search of literary references and a general Google turn up only a few genealogical hits, and references to this passage of the book.

I know the loan shark encountered later, and the book collector/hoarder, were thinly disguised portraits of people N&P knew - is “Allister Toomey” supposed to be Forry Ackerman? - but the odd specificity of “Vincent MacMurdo” makes me think he must be a historical figure of some kind.

Thoughts?

[CalMeacham]

@Amateur_Barbarian

So I was again idly re-reading NivenPournelle’s sf parody of Dante, Inferno, and I was again stumped by the specific name given to the Dickensian clerk in Hell. They make a great point of having him give his name - Vincent MacMurdo. However, a search of literary references and a general Google turn up only a few genealogical hits, and references to this passage of the book.

I know the loan shark encountered later, and the book collector/hoarder, were thinly disguised portraits of people N&P knew - is “Allister Toomey” supposed to be Forry Ackerman? - but the odd specificity of “Vincent MacMurdo” makes me think he must be a historical figure of some kind.

Thoughts?

I don’t know. It’s been ages since I read it. The stand-ins for Forest J. Ackerman and for Kurt Vonnegut Jr. seemed pretty clear and unmistakable, but I don’t even recall the McMurdo character, let alone who he might “really” be.

[CalMeacham]

A quick survey by Google N-gram gives nothing, but Google Books lists a Vincent P. McMurdo associated with ships, apparently in Southern California. Niven and Pournelle live there. If it’s the same guy, maybe it’s an in-joke regarding an acquaintance.

https://www.google.com/search?q="Vincent+McMurdo"&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@CalMeacham

The stand-ins for Forest J. Ackerman and for Kurt Vonnegut Jr. seemed pretty clear and unmistakable…

Yeah, Vonnegut is all but named. I am a little surprised at the characterization of “Allister Toomey,” though… did Forry let any part of his collection fall prey to weather, rats and poor storage? I recall the Ackermansion as being relatively well-maintained, if a bit dusty and crowded.

You may be right about teh MacMurdo reference, too. In-joke.

[Wargamer]

Wasn’t there also a L. Ron Hubbard reference in the work as well?

[FriarTed]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Yeah, Vonnegut is all but named. I am a little surprised at the characterization of “Allister Toomey,” though… did Forry let any part of his collection fall prey to weather, rats and poor storage? I recall the Ackermansion as being relatively well-maintained, if a bit dusty and crowded.

You may be right about teh MacMurdo reference, too. In-joke.

I visited the Ackermansion over a decade ago & remember seeing into a shed or cellar in which what was said to be an early set of reels containing METROPOLIS just scattered on the ground.

[Malacandra]

@Wargamer

Wasn’t there also a L. Ron Hubbard reference in the work as well?

Yes. Unnamed, again, but eminently recognisable - the chatty demon overseeing the pit of People Who Started False Religions points him out as having come up with a particularly inspired way of getting people to reveal things about themselves which would make them vulnerable to exploitation and blackmail. He’s punished by having been transformed into a hideous centipede-like creature that starts with the tail of a trilobite and proceeds through many different reincarnations through millions of years of evolution up to the head of the present day Hubbard. I’d quote it, but I can’t find my copy at the minute and it’s too much trouble at this hour on Christmas morning.

[satogata]

Just the thing for a quiet morning – I had a pretty good idea of where to find it so it only took a few minutes:

It was, in a sense, the last word in centaurs. At one end was most of what I took for a trilobite. The head of the trilobite was a gristly primitive fish. Its head was the torso of a bony fish… and so on up the line, lungfish, proto-rat, bigger rat, a large smooth-skinned beast I didn’t recognize, a thing like a gorilla, a thing like a man, finally a true man. None of the beasts had full hindquarters except the trilobite; none had a head except the man. The whole thing crawled along on flopping fish-torsos and forelegs and hands, a tremendous unmatched centipede. The human face seemed quite mad.

“He founded a religion that masks as a form of lay psychiatry. Members try to recall previous lives in their presumed animal ancestry. They also recall their own past lives… and that adds an interesting blackmail angle, because those who hear confession are often more dedicated than honorable. Excuse me.”

[Malacandra]

Many thanks – that is, of course, the exact reference, chapter and verse.

[Andy_L]

@Amateur_Barbarian

So I was again idly re-reading NivenPournelle’s sf parody of Dante, Inferno, and I was again stumped by the specific name given to the Dickensian clerk in Hell. They make a great point of having him give his name - Vincent MacMurdo. However, a search of literary references and a general Google turn up only a few genealogical hits, and references to this passage of the book.

One of the nice things about the SF community is that the authors are often easy to contact. I dropped an email to Larry Niven, who replied that Jerry Pournelle wrote that scene, but that the name was made up (the point of the scene is that Benito has convinced the clerk that he is a representative of higher authority, so much so that the clerk hopes to get a reward for helping Benito, and thus wants to make sure that Benito has his full name).