Difference between revisions of "ATD 849-863"

Revision as of 19:04, 11 March 2007

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

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Page 849

trois-six chasers
French: three-six. Schnapps from Normandy, sometimes legal, sometimes not. Three measures of alcohol to six measures of water.

flâneur
French: man-about-town.

go-devil squibs . . . oil-well torpedos
Explosive charges set off inside a well in order to clear plugging of the formation that interferes with oil flow.

Buen hombre
Spanish: good man.

all ready to explode
The 1908 Mexican revolution.

¡Seguro, ése!
Spanish: for sure!

Page 850

L'Espagnol Clignant
French: The Blinking Spaniard.

mi hijo
Spanish: my son.

Page 851

heliograph
Communication device that reflects sunlight to form a beam, then interrupts the beam to generate a binary signal in Morse or other code.

gregaou
???

bandoleros
Spanish, literally: bandoleer wearers. Bandits, partisans.

Professeur Pivoine
French: Professor Peony.

Page 852

breaches in the Creation
Thematic. Amazing list follows.

Page 853

Zeugnisbüchlein
German: student's pocket report book. Such a book serves as a transcript for university students.

Old Slavonic script
Glagolitic writing; see the excellent annotation to page 252.

Page 854

the film shot here not long ago
This is an actual film. "Panorama du Grand Canal pris d'un bateau" is available on the DVD The Lumiere Bros. First Films distributed by Kino Video.

the image had entered the Arsenale
???

rope-walks
Making rope calls for a room or yard somewhat longer than the end product, called a rope-walk.

pistolieri
Italian: men with pistols.

association football
Called soccer in the U.S. and football everywhere else.

Page 855

Il Squalaccio
"squalo" is Italian for "shark." Appropriate to a submarine's name, a squalaccio would be an evil shark — and may refer to the Italian torpedo — even if the article used is wrong (should be Lo Squalaccio, but Pynchon sometimes has problems with Italian articles, also considering that I Zingari should be Gli Zingari). "Squalaccio" also name-connects with the Argentine exile in Gravity's Rainbow, Squalidocci, which would translate to ....?

Page 856

Attenzione
Italian: attention.

Austriaci
Italian: Austrians.

Page 857

terraferma
Italian: solid ground. The parts of Venice (Mestre, etc.) not built in the Lagoon.

squero
A squero is a workshop for building gondolas.
...a Venetian boat-builder

Page 858

mavrovlaco
Italian: Mauro-Vlach or Morlach. An inhabitant of the western coastal part of the Balkan Peninsula.

Page 859

Marcel wave
n 1872, Marcel had introduced his famous Marcel wave using a heated iron that imitated the natural curl of the hair. Hot tongs were applied to produce a curl rather than a crimp. Done at intervals over the head, the hair would assume the look of moiré. It revolutionized the art of hairdressing all over the world. The Marcel wave remained popular for almost half a century and helped usher in a new era of women's waved and curled hairpieces, which were mixed with the natural hair.

Ciprianuccio
Nickname for Cyprian stressing his clumsiness.

parruchiere
Italian: wigmaker, hairdresser.

Page 860

Macchè
Italian: no, no way.

Cadorina
Breed of sheep native to the area from Venice north to the mountains, now extinct.

day-to-day lives
vision of. Thematic.

Page 861

Page 862

Cimiez
A suburb of Nice, France.

Dalmatian
From Dalmatia, coastal and island part of Croatia.

Emotional Anarchist
Thematic.

Law of Deterministic Insufficiency
Perhaps referring to C.S. Pierce's notion of Chance existing as an irreducible element in the universe?. See Chums of.

Page 863

obvious from the foregoing
I.e., the baffling development I just finished leads (with some hand-waving) to the following unsupported conclusion.

Annotation Index