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On names and mythologies: Malamud certainly gives his characters names that are meant to convey meaning. issybird, I really liked your link between Harriet Bird, the canary, and Vogelman.
The name Roy of course indicates that he could have risen to the heights, but his moral faults meant that he could not do so. And the severe injury he sustained was from a silver bullet - something used to slay monsters. Maybe Harriet Bird saw sports stars in that light.
There was also the harking back to a happy time as a child in the woods, wandering with his dog. Memo destroyed that innocent part of him when he thought she knocked down a boy in the woods, driving his newly acquired car.
By the way, was that something that happened, where an individual player was given a huge pile of all sorts of gifts?
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