Difference between revisions of "ATD 557-587"

Revision as of 13:10, 29 December 2006

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

Page 557

Viktor Mulciber
???

bespoke
made to order, hence hand-made and expensive. Somewhere in the novel is a reference to 1 Savile Row, the address of Gieves and Hawkes, a very traditional English tailor.

Basil Zaharoff
???

trains of history... run
???

Balkan komitadji
???

waybill
???

metamorphosed into an American Negro
Cf honorary Negro (Frank above).

Nipponese
Japanese

Hertzian
Electromagnetic waves, first demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz

Page 558

scalar part
Quaternion equivalent of the real part

baritone in a barbershop quartet
Quote:Technically speaking, barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied singing with three voices harmonizing to the melody. The lead usually sings the melody, with the tenor harmonizing above the lead. The bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes and the baritone provides in-between notes, either above or below the lead to make chords (specifically, dominant-type or "barbershop" sevenths) that give barbershop its distinctive, "full" sound.

viola in a string quartet
Two violins, a viola, and a violoncello make up a string quartet. The viola is between the others in pitch and is generally considered to have been given the least interesting parts in Classical and Romantic music for string quartet.

Further Term
The three parts of a quaternion that are multiples of i, j and k

laterite
A mineral structure formed by erosion, see Wikipedia.

Inner Boulevards
???

Gare du Midi
The largest railway station in Brussels and a haunt of prostitutes.

Edouard Gevaert
(No ligature?)

Page 559

Krupp field-piece
The Krupps are an ancient German family, famous for making weapons. A field-piece is a light-cannon.

vaguely glandular
???

ostinato
A continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.

poleaxed
???

lost to silence
(Not silent, or very?)

Page 560

Estacade
???

mousmée... mouchard
???

always lead an irregular life
Cf GR.

Maria Bayley Hamilton
???

council meeting
???

Page 561

Brougham Bridge
???

pulls a knife
(Folklore, really later?)

on the stone
???

Pentecostal
???

official Mischief Opportunity
???

absinthe spoons
???

cravats
???

"four-door farce"
(See eg Bogdanovich's "What's Up, Doc?") This is also a pun on the name of Georges Feydeau, French writer of farces who was writing when Pynchon's novel is set. One of the recurring physical jokes involves sets with many doors and people coming in and out, just missing each other....

Page 562

Minque
???

carillons... carilloneur
???

Hanseatic
???

burghers
???

silted up
???

Damme and Sluis
???

Page 563

trusted his intuitiveness
???

"Jou moerskont!"... Afrikaans
???

Page 564

immense choir
???

Voetsak
???

starers
???

tobacco-stricken
???

half-silvering
???

four cusps... index-surface
???

co-conscious
???

Page 565

true icosahedron
???

12+8... pyrites
???

Riemann sphere
???

Felix Klein
???

ebonite
???

Ohmic Drift
???

speed of the earth... kinetic energy
???

Recently Lorentz's paper
???

Lord Rayleigh
???

Page 566

In a dream...

This passage, describing Kit's dream of Umeki and the message it conveys, pulls together many of the main themes of Against the Day, tying things together in a way that Pynchon seldom does, almost as if he's providing a rather large piece of the puzzle to help the reader understand the novel:

"Deep among the equations describing the behavor of light, field equations, Vector and Quaternion equations, lies a set of directions, an intinerary, a map to a hidden space. Double refraction appears again and again as a key element, permitting a view into a Creation set just to the side of this one, so close as to overlap, where the membrane between the worlds, in many places, has become too frail, too permeable, for safety.... Within the mirror, with the scalar term, within the daylit and obvious and taken-for-granted has always lain, as if in wait, the dark intinerary, the corrupted pilgrim's guide, the nameless Station before the first, in the lightless uncreated, where salvation does not yet exist."

analogies
(Pynchonian heuristics.)

nameless Station
???

lightless uncreated
(Gnostic heresy?)

stuffed sinus
???

Konichiwa
???

Page 567

new Puccini opera
Obviously, Madame Butterfly

Borel-Clerc... "La Matchiche"
Popular vaudeville song from 1903. "La Matchiche" is French for the Brazilian dance Maxixe.

western anchor
What about France, Spain, Portugal?

Compaignie Internationale des Wagons-Lits
"International Sleeping-Car Company", Wikipedia

two hundred francs
???

theory of sets
???

Bruges Canal
???

Page 568

vaporetto
A Venetian water-bus.

Grand Canal
The main canal that runs through the heart of Venice and down past San Marco, the city's main square.

San Marco end
See above. This is where Florian's (appears in the novel) is situated.

Piazzetta
???

San Giorgio Maggiore
A rather over-ornate church on the Grand Canal opposite San Marco.

spreading... cloak
Cliche/allusion?

live here forever
Pynchon special-pleading that Dally isn't just another tourist. Or is this just a typical reaction of the tourist? And a Pynchonesque longing for home?

Page 569

Malibran... Polo's house
The Teatro Malibran, built at the site of Marco Polo's house, which was destroyed in 1596.

"pincette" pass
Probably from the pincer movement of military strategy.

profondes
"Large pockets in tail coats which can be used for vanishes or productions", Wikipedia

Vincenzo Miserere
???

train to Trieste
???

Svegli
???

shark leather
Different from sharkskin?

Specchiere
Mirror-maker

glassmakers on Murano
Wikipedia

Page 570

another one of his stories
(Jackson Pynchon should highlight all the AtD passages that originated as bedtime stories.)

TERAPIA
Italian, "therapy"

San Servolo
An island in the Venetian archipelago, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Palazzo Ducale
The Ducal Palace in Venice, residence of the Doge. It's by San Marco.

manicomio
Italian, "madhouse"

uterine vellum
Vellum produced from the skin of an unborn calf

pitch, rouge
???

Page 571

La Doppiatrice
???

Ettore Sananzolo
???

Maskelyne cabinet
After Neville Maskelyne, from Mason and Dixon. Maskelyne sent M and D to record the Transit of Venus.

Page 572

smoke back into a cigar
Time's arrow/ entropy motif.

hard-as-a-rock black cigar
???

thumping
???

salso
???

sandoli
???

trains pulling in
Famous early film.

Page 573

Cannareggio
???

Page 574

thirty years older
About 65yo?

that day
In NYC when Dally showed up.

when she was born
Cf Pretenders/Chryssie Hynde.

Stronzo
???

In bocc' al lupo!
From the Roman dialect, in which the Italians - including Rocco and Pino - seem to speak. Meaning, literally, "In the mouth of the wolf," and idiomatically, "Good luck."

campielli
???

Page 575

Riva
???

middy blouses
???

not yet been rebuilt
???

lucciole
???

fondamenta
A waterside street in Venice

ombreta
???

light's good here
Old joke about drunk looking for car keys under streetlight though he dropped them somewhere else.

microcosm
???

Page 576

twelve soldi
???

franc... ten francs
???

Canaletto
???

Beppo
???

pitch
???

Bauer-Grünwald
An expensive hotel near San Marco in Venice.

Page 577

'Safe'
Recent art-movie title?

Castello
???

Evening Gun
???

importunate
???

Dr. Grace
???

Page 578

Dorsoduro
An area of Venice.

pensione
A cheap Italian hotel, like a bed and breakfast.

La Calcina
???

Zattere
An area of wide waterfront pavements in Venice.

cimici
???

bora
???

Page 579

Tintoretto's Abduction...
???

Accademia
The major art-gallery in Venice

Titian
16th century Venetian painter.

Infancy Gospel of Thomas
???

Page 580

Pentecost story in Acts
???

Galilean dialect
Of Aramaic.

rii
Plural of rio.

Page 581

sotopòrteghi
An open doorway for public access.

Bodeo 10.4 mm
???

Page 582

foschetta
???

masègni
???

patrone
???

wine trains up from Puglia
???

Winter
1904-1905?

Principessa Spongiatosta
Is Pugnax's book from p6 at all relevant here?

Ca'
???

Roman Composite order
???

japonica
???

Page 583

Iron Bridge
???

Le Havre
???

ma via
???

third eyes touching
???

Page 584

"Swiss insurance salesman. Wolf. No, Putzi."
Bria's had so many beaux she gets them confused?

topo
???

Dogana
???

Andrea Tancredi
???

Seurat and Signac
???

Divisionism
???

Marinetti
???

"Futurists"
???

brutalism
???

Torcello
A lonely Venetian island: very peaceful and beautiful with a church and little else.

primitivo
???

Page 585

green-and-lavender
???

sirocco
???

San Michele
???

futuristic vehicle
P155.

Preliminary Studies...
???

Page 586

Always with us.
Gospel of ?.

vero
Cf 'verdad'.

orpiment yellow
???

Nürnberg violet
???

Page 587

nebbia, nebbietta, foschia, caligo, sfumato
???

speed of sound
Air temperature is more important that density.

La Velocità del Suono
???

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