[telemachos]

This reminded me of a favorite story of mine about Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon: Pynchon was a student of Nabokov's when he was at Cornell. Years later when Pynchon himself became famous, Nabokov told interviewers that he had no memory of Pynchon as a student. But Vera remembered Pynchon's handwriting. She really was the "course assistant" as this article mentions: she must have done the grading too.

[gruseom]

There's also a great story about Pynchon as a student of M.H. Abrams at Cornell: http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/abrams.htm