Difference between revisions of "ATD 644-677"

Revision as of 06:21, 20 January 2007

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

Page 644

E.B. Soltera
Soltera is Spanish: spinster. Estrella Briggs, Unmarried.

Regeneration Equipment
In chemical technology "regeneration" means taking a spent product out of the system and cleaning it up for reuse.

whiteness
stressed motif. Cf. alabaster temples at the Columbian Exposition.Cf. whiteness in GR.

Page 645

E.P.T.
El Paso, Texas.

Page 646

Page 647

For really it was the sidekick who presented the problem. Restless type. Fair hair, hat back on his head so the big brim sort of haloed his face, shiny eyes and low-set, pointed ears like an elf's...

Billy the Kid?

Daisy, Daisy
Daisy Bell" is a popular song whose lyrics ("Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do...I'm half crazy, all for the love of you..." as well as the line "...a bicycle built for two") are considerably better known than the song's actual title. "Daisy Bell" was composed by Harry Dacre in 1892. As David Ewen writes in American Popular Songs: "When Dacre, an English popular composer, first came to the United States, he brought with him a bicycle, for which he was charged duty. His friend (the songwriter William Jerome) remarked lightly: 'It's lucky you didn't bring a bicycle built for two, otherwise you'd have to pay double duty.' Dacre was so taken with the phrase 'bicycle built for two' that he decided to use it in a song. That song, Daisy Bell, first became successful in a London music hall, in a performance by Kate Lawrence. Tony Pastor was the first one to sing it in the United States. Its success in America began when Jennie Lindsay brought down the house with it at the Atlantic Gardens on the Bowery early in 1892." Wikipedia....see this for memorable occasions of its use. It was evidently sung at the OK Corral gunfight, if TRP says so but I have not substantiated this yet.

Page 648

Page 649

Rosie's Cantina
As found in Marty Robbins's 1959 hit song "El Paso" (a song frequently covered by the Grateful Dead). When the exiled narrator attempts to return to the cantina, he sees to his right "five mounted cowboys/Off to my left ride a dozen or more."

Page 650

Page 651

Page 652

Karawankenbahn . . . Tauern . . . Wochein
A series of tunnels constructed as part of a huge Austrian public works project in the first years of the 20th century. They are named for ranges of mountains and hills they pass through. The objective was to develop rail transport to the port of Trieste. It's possible the Wochein tunnel is now in Italy under another name.

Brigue
Also spelled Brig.

Page 653

League of Prizren
Aimed for Albanian unity and autonomy; 1878; Wikipedia article.

many superstitions inside this mountain
Tunnelers and miners were among the most superstitious trades. Small wonder.

Page 654

Me fal
???

history. They suffered from it...survive to see the day.
Title thematic.To see the day History [Time] ended?

Page 655

Tatzelwurm
A/k/a Swiss dragon. A mythical creature or cryptid, depending on who you believe. Wikipedia entry; Cryptid zoo website.

[S]ometimes a Tatzelwurm is only a Tatzelwurm.
Echoing the comment attributed to Freud, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", the cigar-loving alienist who would have been on the faculty of the University of Vienna at this time.

Page 656

favogn
Also known as a föhn, a dry wind blowing up the lee side of the Alps.

balneomaniacs
People avid for mineral baths and spas like those at . . .

Baden-Baden . . . Wagga Wagga
In Germany and New South Wales (Australia) respectively. Names, of course, which suggest bilocation.

Moazagotl clouds
A persistent cloud formation associated with the föhn. Technical definition.

Page 657

Macchè, gioia mia
Italian: No way, my joy!

Càlmati
Italian: Take it easy.

Tutto va bene. Un amico di pochi anni fa
Italian: It's all right. A friend from years ago.

Ambroid
Synthetic amber used for costume jewelry.

Tesoro
Italian: treasure.

Page 658

Petite Roquette
A Paris prison later used as a reformatory for boys.

Tatzelwurm
Cryptozoologists also use the term "Swiss dragon" for this mythical Alpine beast. Its habitation is not said to be limited to mines and tunnels. Mostly uninformative Wikipedia entry.

spital
Various languages: hospital, infirmary.

Page 659

bien sûr
French: certainly. Here "Of course you did."

Page 660

Page 661

Intra
Now Verbania, on the shore of Lago Maggiore.

Page 662

shadows with undulating tails and moving wings
???

the revenge of Deep Germany
We have seen an earlier reference to deeper Germany, to the pre-Christian, pre-rational Germany, here supposed to be avenging itself upon the mechanised, rational order that has supplanted it.

Page 663

stranniki
Dissenters from the Russian Orthodox Church; a sect of Old Believers who rejected the Orthodox priesthood and sacraments.

podpol'niki, underground men
The Russian word does mean that, but the present use is especially interesting because they are pod pole, under the floor.

Page 664

anterooms of death
The metaphor repeated from page 526, now possibly with a different meaning.

Page 665

tunnel Italian
The pidgin Reef learned in the tunnels.

repeated figure being played on an alpenhorn
Ri-i-co-la!

Page 666

Reader, she bit him.
Reef has failed, both literally and figuratively, to screw the pooch. (and, of course, a parody of the opening sentence of the final chapter of "Jane Eyre")

Page 667

skeezicks
Affectionate term for a man. The foundling Skeezix was the protagonist of the comic strip "Gasoline Alley."

vint
A real game.

avantyuristka
Unfortunate placement of the hyphen makes it look as if it's avant- something, but it's a single Russian word, авантюристка, meaning "adventuress."

Page 668

reticule
Lady's handbag, especially one made by netting or tatting.

Ite, missa est
Last words of the Latin mass: Go, you are sent.

Page 669

Pinks
Pinkerton agents.

Page 670

glowing giant amœbas that leave sticky residues
A recent book, Spook, by Mary Roach, tells how 19th-century mediums prepared these cheesecloth apparitions and secreted them in their vaginas.

Page 671

Bozhe moi!
Russian: My God.

speakin as an old bunco man . . . it was him talkin
Reef displaying the kind of skepticism that would eventually explode the whole spiritualist enterprise.

Page 672

Page 673

Page 674

swamper
One who performs general, menial duties.

vis inertiæ
Latin: force of inertia. Not considered a "force" since Newton.

Page 675

As light began to steep in...

Like on page 566, this dream-passage seems to contain a top-down examination of Kit's progress; of his motives and awareness of complicity in the Traverse vengeance-quest against the Vibes. Similar to Kit's earlier dream(s?), it's a thematic reduction and feels like a significant 'clue':

As light began to steep in around the edges of the window blinds, Kit fell asleep again and dreamed of a bullet en route to the heart of an enemy, traveling for many years and many miles, hitting something now and then and ricocheting off at a different angle but continuing its journey as if conscious of where it must go, and he understood that this zigzagging around through four-dimensional space-time might be expressed as a vector in five dimensions. Whatever the number of n dimensions it inhabited, an observer would need one extra, n + 1, to see it and connect the end points to make a single result.

In addition to the broad narrative summary, there appears to be a metatextual implication here. Regarding the reader in Pynchon's overall 'Against The Day' scheme: the novel n must be observed from an n +1 perspective (that is: dimensionally distinct) to connect end-points and weave a single result, to engage and correlate strands and twines into a coherent narrative whole. Without an overarching consciousness there's apparent anarchy: with said consciousness there's meaning and vector.

remy 10:52, 28 December 2006 (PST)

Page 676

Page 677

Buda-Pesth
Budapest. The cities of Buda and Pest (archaic spelling Pesth) were unified in 1872; the hyphenated spelling persisted for many years.

Annotation Index