Difference between revisions of "ATD 748-767"

Latest revision as of 23:15, 10 August 2009

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

Page 749

Crotona
Cf page 633: Crotona in Magna Grecia. or page 706: Crotona.

Or Croton. One of the most flourishing cities of Magna Graecia. According to Herodotus (3.131), the physicians of Croton were considered the foremost among the Greeks. Pythagoras founded his school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton circa 530 BC Crotona.

Professor McTaggart
Cf page 239: McTaggart.

combination-room
in the University of Cambridge, England, a room into which the fellows withdraw after dinner, for wine, dessert, and conversation.

a Nietzschean
A believer in the ideas of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/

In the context of Yashmeen's letter, where being a Nietzschean is contrasted with Professor McTaggart's very optimistic vision of "an era of enlightenment and peace", Yashmeen is surely referring to Nietzsche's visionary prediction of a horrible coming century, the 20th. ["That he--Nietzsche--forsaw the advent of Hitlerism is another matter." R.J. Hollingdale, translator of Thus Spake Zarathustra, Penguin Classics, introduction, page 14].
McTaggart's view---he did not believe that Time existed, remember!-- was a very socially acceptable and common one especially among intellectuals of the time. Notice the word 'evolved', as Darwin's ideas spread and many thought the world would keep getting better and better; there would be no more wars ever, etc.
H. G. Wells was such an optimist---and WW 1 devastated this belief. MKOHUT 11:03, 15 June 2007 (PDT)

Nietzsche's sister, in an introduction to his work Thus Spake Zarathustra, said that while writing the work, Nietzsche wrote to her:

"I have engaged a place here for three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to be sapped from me by the climate of Italy. Now and again I am troubled by the thought: WHAT NEXT? My 'future' is the darkest thing in the world to me, but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and leave the rest to THEE and the gods."^[1] (Emphasis added)

Nietzsche's sister notoriously elided and, perhaps, falsified some of Nietzshe's letters, scholars agree. See the Introduction, p. 14, by the later translator of the Penguin Classics edition of Thus Spake Zarathustra alluded to above. Pynchon would know this as/if he read Nietzsche, I must assume. I think the "dark future" Nietzshe writes of in that letter, if it is quoted accurately,refers to his fears of his own future--the reception and development of his ideas--see preceding line but, mostly, his own fears for his mental health. He was what we might call neurasthenic; his sensibility needed a special place near the water in Turin to write 'Zarathustra' he felt. He worried, rightly, that he might have a breakdown---and later did. He was out of touch with reality most of his last years. MKOHUT 09:01, 18 June 2007 (PDT)

returned to thoughts Perhaps another of Pynchon's masterfully subtle verbal/ideational allusions. One of Nietzsche's famous ideas is the notion of 'the eternal return'. By this he meant that the universe, if it had no Final End as in most teleologies, and all everyone did within it, would recur and repeat endlessly. Yashmeen's earlier thoughts were now recurring, so to allude.
One might reflect on Pynchon's view of History: does it recur cyclically?

Page 750

Rinpungpa
In the 15th century, Namka Gyantsan, an aristocrat, usurped the post of Dzongpon (magistrate) of Rinpung county and changed it to a hereditary position. Called Ringpungpa in Tibetan historical books, the family gradually grew stronger and more powerful, establishing a separatist rule in Ringpung County whose influence extended into the internal section of the Phaddru regime [1]. The "scholar" referred to would have to be a descendent of this powerful family. Again the spiritual and temporal powers are intertwined. TRP is fond of usurpation; cf. the Tristero in The Crying of Lot 49.

Insh'allah
Arabic term evoked by speakers to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will." Wikipedia

Page 751

Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital of Romania. It is located in the southeast of the country, and an industrial and commercial center of Romania.

Constantza
Constanţa, Romanian port on Black Sea.

Batumi
Batumi is a Black Sea port city in southwest Georgia. It is located about 12 mile from the Turkish border in a subtropical zone, rich in citrus fruit and tea.

dukhans
Inns.

Baku
Cf page 168: Baku. This is the fifth time Baku was mentioned; previously page 168, page 441, page 631 and page 639. But this is the first time Baku itself was being described.
Background: In 1907 Oil workers in Baku protested against working conditions, led by none other than Uncle Joe Stalin himself. On September 29, 1907, Stalin delivered a speech at the gravesite of a worker killed by hired agents of capitalists.

Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea is a saltwater lake in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, the largest inland body of water in the world. It is bordered on the west by Azerbaijan and Russia, on the northeast and east by Kazakhstan, on the east by Turkmenistan, and on the south by Iran. In the 1960s and 1970s the level of Caspian Sea fell substantially, partly due to irrigation usage of the water. In 1980s its level began rising again at a rate of about 6 to 8 inches annually. The Caspian Sea has no outlet, but it is linked to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Black Sea by an extensive network of inland waterways, chief of which is the Volga River.

Bnito oil tankers
In 1870s-80s Nobels Brothers (Cf page 444: Nobel brothers) dominated distribution of oil within the Russian Empire. The Rothschilds decided to take on the Nobels and in 1886 founded their own oil company: BNITO. To break the Nobels' monopoly on distribution of oil, The Bnito Co. won a contract to transport Bnito oil east of the Suez Canal and developed the tanker, a ship specifically designed to carry oil in storage tanks built into the hull as opposed to just placing barrels of oils in the hold. (Some historians said the exploitations of Baku's oil were how did the Nobel Brothers afford a peace prize and Rothschilds acquire their bank.)

Krasnovodsk
Krasnovodsk is a city in Turkmenistan on the Krasnovodsk Gulf of the Caspian Sea. As the terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railroad, it is an important transportation center. In 1993 it was renamed by the president-for-life Niyazov, after his self-proclaimed tilte, Türkmenbasy, Leader of all Turkmen.

Trans-Caspian Railroad
Trans Caspian Railroad, also called the Central Asiatic Railroad, built by the Russians in the 19th century, follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It starts at the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk and heads southeast, along the edge of the Karakum Desert.

Qara Qum
Now more often spelled Kara Kum, a desert between Caspian Sea and Amu Darya River with the Aral Sea to the north. Karakum Desert occupies about 80% of the area of Turkmenistan with an average of one person per 2.5 sq miles. It has significant oil and natural gas deposits, and is crossed by the Trans-Caspian railroad.

railroad-metaphysics
Notice how 'consciousness is a part of this description. And reflect on what Pynchon thinks of railroads, therefore of the phenomenology of 'railroad metaphysics'.

Page 752

The effect of rotating ninety degrees from a moving timeline, as expected, was delivery into a space containing imaginary axes...
The moving train is described by a tensor, its path a vector in three dimensions plus the time dimension. Looking out from it, i.e. at ninety degrees to its direction of travel, may involve axes with complex number coordinates. In other words, looking out of a train moving through unknown territory involves one in acts of imagination, trying to fathom the lives lived in the territory one is passing through, here a very strange one for Kit (consultation of the Times Atlas shows the railroad's route is described precisely, between desert and irrigated fields, and on to the terminus), or perhaps alternate histories generated by leaving the train at any point.

Merv
Merv is a city in Turkmenistan. It was a major oasis-city in Central Asia on the historical Silk Road. The site of ancient Merv had been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

barkhan
traveling crescent-shaped sand dune.

footplate man
Railroad crewman, one involved in the running or maintenance of the locomotive (the control cabin surface of a steam locomotive is called the footplate).

deadheading
A crew member riding as a passenger, not actively participating in the running of the vehicle, is said to be "deadheading"; the term is still used in railroading and on the airlines. Similarly, a nonworking locomotive being towed as part of a train is a "deadhead". (Unavoidable allusion, perhaps, to the non-working followers of the Grateful Dead, as well).

Samarkand
Samarkand is a city in Uzbekistan on the Trans-Caspian Railroad. It is one of the oldest existing cities in the world and the oldest of Central Asia. At its greatest period it had great silk and iron industries and was the meeting point of merchants' caravans from India, Persia, and China. It still is a major cotton and silk center.

Namaz Premulkoff
His given name is the Persian and Turkic translation of Arabic salah or salat: the five daily prayers required of Muslims. How did a Muslim get a Russianized surname? Same way Kazakhstan's present ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev did, by getting his vital statistics recorded under Russian rules.

In a heartening instance of world news following the wiki, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmonov announced in March 2007 that he and other Tajiks will be stripping the Slavic endings off their names. Kindly address him as President Rakhmon in all future correspondence.

Page 753

Charjui
A city of 25,000, bordering with Uzbekistan, in Turkmenistan.

Amu-Darya . . . the Oxus
Cf page 439: the Oxus.

Bukhara
Bukhara lies west of Samarkand and is one of the most ancient cities of Uzbekistan. The name of Bukhara originates from the word vihara which means "monastery" in Sanskrit. The city was once a large commerical center on the Silk Road and a center of learning renowned throughout the Islamic world. It still has 350 mosques and 100 religious colleges.

Kagan
Kagan City, ten miles outside Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Khokand
Khokand is a city in eastern Uzbekistan at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It is about 140 miles souteast of Tashkent. It is on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes.

Andizhan
Andizhan is the fourth-largest city in Uzbekistan. It is located in the east of the country in the Fergana Valley near the border with Kyrgyzstan.

Osh
Osh is an ancient city in the Fergana Valley of southern Kyrgyzstan. Osh is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan and is often referred to as the "capital of the south".

Kashgar
Cf page 630: Kashgar.

the Taklamakan
Cf page 444: Taklamakan.

Stanley and Livingstone
David Livingstone (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary and explorer in central Aftica. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named. He is perhaps best remembered because of his meeting with Henry Stanley (1841-1904), a jounalist and explorer, which gave rise to the popular quotation, Dr. Livingstone, I presume?. Late in his life Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years, and Stanley was sent by New York Herald in 1869 to find him as a publicity stunt. Stanley found Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in November 10, 1871 with the now famous tongue-in-cheek greeting (Livingstone was the only white man within hundreds of miles). In 1939, a popular film called Stanley and Livingstone was released with Spencer Tracy as Stanley.

Page 754

Prokladka
The name is a common Russian word with two meanings: construction and gasket. Female hygienic pads (with or without wings) are also referred to as prokladkas

Kalinka
"My Little Snowball Tree", Russian folk song, popularized by Red Army Chorus.

Ochi Chorniya
Stereotypical Russian ballad, "Dark Eyes." The second word is actually Chorniye. (It's spelled so now, but before 1917 it was chorniya or chornyya.)

E. N. Molokhovets
The book (Podarok molodym khozyaykam, Kursk: 1861) and the author are real. Elena Burman married city architect Frants Frantsevich Molokhovets, whose name is not Russian but suggests a Germanized Polish noble family (Franz Molochowiec). The etymology is not clear.

Orloff
Also known as Oryol or Orel Trotter, a breed developed in the 19th century.

the Tian Shan
The Tian Shan (Chinese words for "Celestial Mountains") is the mountain range, west of the Taklamakan Desert, running some 1,700 miles eastward from Tashkent into China. The mountain range is part of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish chokusu (24,400 ft) and the second highest Khan Tengri (23,100 ft).

Bol'shaia Igra
"The Great Game", counterpart to the Inconvenience. Cf page 123 & page 245.

use of betel
Betel is a spice whose leaves have medicinal properties. The plant is evergreen and perennial, with glossy heart-shaped leaves and white catkins, and grows to a height of slightly over 3 feet. In India and parts of Southeast Asia, betel leaves are chewed with mineral lime and the areca nut which promotes red-stained saliva. Betel leaves are used as a stimulant, an anitseptic and a breath-freshener. They are used to treat headaches, arthritis, toothache, indigestion, constipation, etc.

Page 755

the Urals
The Urals is a mountain system in western Russia extending for over 1,240 miles from the Artic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and traditionally regarded as the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The mountains hold vast mineral wealth.

A.D.C. or lichnyi adiutant
Aide-de-camp or (Russian:) personal adjutant.

Klopski
Klop is a Russian word for "bug."

peculiar machines
Arcade games?

These "so-called Chinese Enigmata," with their habit-forming and soul-stealing technological effects, sound like a riff on the current state of video games, TV, virtual reality, internet--screens in general. --Jerwolff 12:55, 9 May 2007 (PDT)

Yob tvoyu mat'
Russian, literally: Fuck your mother. Just a general expletive. (Cf page 616: Yob tvoyu mat').

zastolye
Group of people around a table. A feast.

begin to spin
To whirl like a Dervish, a member of a mystical Sufi sect that spins to induce visions ("your mind proceeding to flee in all directions at once"). The "Spin" of an electron, however, is also one of four quantum numbers (all vector quantities) specifying the electron's exact quantum state. It can be further used to calculate properties of electrons as wave functions, radiating "in all directions at once" [2].

Page 756

Poshol ty na khuy
Impolite Russian, literally "Go to the prick", meaning; "Fuck off".

The Doosra
Doosra is an Urdu word loosely meaning "second". It has become common parlance in cricket in the past few years and is used to describe a ball bowled by a finger spinner that turns in the opposite direction from his stock delivery. A lot of controversy surrounds the doosra as it is hard to bowl legally (it is much easier to throw it than to bowl it). One assumes that Pynchon was aware of all this: see the cricketing references on pp.219-242. In particular, Pynchon has already referenced the bosie: a mirror image of the doosra. More bilocations, anyone?

The Doosra "turns in the opposite direction," one could say it "counterflies."

Interestingly, the most famous contemporary exponent of the Doosra, Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, if often accused of having an illegal action, or "chucking" the ball. Murali's doosra, if illegal, would be a "chuck". Close enough to Chick Counterfly?.

from Manchuria west to Hungary
The extent of the 13th century Mongol Empire (see "Chingiz" below).

Pan-Turanian
Pan-Turanism is a political movement for the union of all Turanian peoples, or the collective inclusion of all Altaic peoples.

ganja
cannabis.

fusel oils
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, or potato oil in Europe, are higher order (more than two carbons) alcohols formed by fermentation and present in cider, mead, beer, wine, and spirits to varying degrees. The term fusel is German for “bad liquor.” Fusel oil.

Great Game
An allusion to R. Kipling's Kim. Kim is a boy who is enrolled in the "Indian Secret Service" and who sees spying as a great and wonderful game.

Chingiz
Also transliterated as "Genghis" as in "Genghis Khan".

denshchik
Russian: batman.

Madali
Muhammad 'Ali Khan, also known as Madali Khan. From 1822–42 he ruled the Uzbek Ming dynasty and the Kokand khanate, raising the level of culture, expanding foreign policy and resisting Russian aggression.

Page 757

poisonous nutmeat
betel.

Uyghur
Member of an ethnic group in western China, sometimes described as Indo-European.

Al Mar-Fuad
Get a load of this character! He dresses in English hunting tweeds and a deerstalker cap, brandishes a shotgun, pronounces his "r"'s as w's, and says things like "Weally?" and "I am going out after some gwouse." Maybe "wabbits" are next for this Uyghur version of Elmer Fudd (Al Mar-Fuad--get it?).

Lord Salisbury
Lord Salisbury (1830-1903) was a British statesman and Prime Minister on three occasions: 1885-1886, 1886-1892 and 1895-1902. He, the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century, is seen as an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.

Page 758

. . . so as to draw off the odd Russian division in the event of a European war
To have some idea of the realtionship between Russia and Japan at this time, see the Wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War [3].

yakitori pitches
Yakitori: grilled bird, a Japanese type of skewered chicken made from several bite-sized pieces of chicken meat, or chicken offal, skewered on a bamboo skewer and barbecued, usually over charcoal Wikipedia. Pitch: a stand, especially for selling something; compare "queer the pitch," p. 608.

old Cavi ate the sausage at Kabul
Sir Louis Cavagnari, British envoy to Afghanistan, killed on Sept. 3, 1879, in the course of an insurrection. If "eat the sausage" is some horrible detail, no online source specifies.
I believe "eat the sausage" is slang and refers to the fact that he was killed, like "kicked the bucket."

Source, please? If it is a known figure of speech, it's quite an obscure one. In a Google search on May 9, 2007, search string "eat the sausage" die:

the first 80 hits gave phrases involving cyanide, potato salad, mustard, and animals from which sausage is made, but it was always a real sausage, not a metaphorical one. "Kick the bucket," on the other hand, came up as a metaphor in 10 out of the first 10 hits.

meddling of the Powers...convergence to the Mohammedan
Exactly the situation today. More 1900/2000 parallels. It might be more accurate to say that the situation today evolved from the situation then. This sounds more like a good discussion topic rather than annotation material.

Polkovnik
Russian: Colonel.

Polny pizdets
Russian: a total fuckup.

Simla
Now call Shimla. It was the summer capital of the erstwhile British Raj in India. It is now the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Shimla, nestled in the middle Himalayas in northern India, is a favorite destination for honeymooners and tourists, particularly in summer.

Punjabi Hill States, refuge and resort of Raj officers for generations [4].

Pelitis
Peliti was a Manufacturing Confectioner and he was by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen Empress, a purveyor of cakes, chocolates etc. He started his restaurant and confectionery business in 1870 at 11 Government Place in the Dalhousie Square area of Calcutta.(At a meeting on 26-Sep-1919 the Rotary Club of Calcutta was organized thus ushering in the movement in India and indeed the mainland of Asia)[5].

the Combermere Bridge
In 1828, Lord Combermere, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, built a bridge spanning a gushing mountain stream in Simla (Shimla). See a drawing of the bridge.

Page 759

"...who can draw boundaries between the remembrancer and the remembered?"
Possibly an echo of the last line of W. B. Yeats' well-known poem Among School Children: "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

transnoctial
Not through but across the night; compare Transnoctial Discussion group, p. 131.

the Waziri
A people from Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

"haunted spaces of desire . . . walled in by work-demands"
is co-conscious(ness), page 760

Page 760

two creatures resident within the same life . . . each at once respectful and contemptuous of the other's imperatives
As frequently as English speakers quote, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" (and just as inaptly), German speakers quote a line from Goethe's Faust:

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust

It begins a fine speech, which this contributor translates as

Alas, there are two souls living in my breast,

Which will not be reconciled.
One, grasping for love,
Faces out to the world;
The other shuns the flesh

And turns toward a higher sphere.

Halfcourt sees himself as a Faust-like dual being.

mystical waterfalls that hide the Hidden Worlds of Tibetan lamas
Behind which lie the beyuls. These places really exist! Please see Ian Baker's The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place

Page 761

subaltern
A junior officer in the British army; now titled second lieutenant in most regiments.

Guri Amir
Guri Amir or Gur-e Amir is the mausoleum Tamerlane built for his family. It is a great monument of Islamic architecture. Guri Amir Mausoleum pictures.

Alexander III
Alexander III (1845-1894) was the Tsar of Russia between 1881-1894. He died in Livadia Palace, Crimea, and was buried at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St.Petersburg. He was succeeded by his eldest son Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Tsar Alexander's memorial is located in Irkustsk at the embankment of the Angara River.

Tamerlane
Tamerlane (1336-1405), the most influential Central Asia's military leader of the Middle Ages, restored the former Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. During his long military career, Tamerlane engaged in an almost constant state of warfare in order to extend his borders and maintain his conquest, which reached from the Mediterranean in the west to India in the South and Russia in the North.

Craven A
Plainly not the blend of pipe tobacco celebrated under the name "Arcadia" by James M. Barrie. London tobacconist Craven also gave his name to a brand of cigarettes now manufactured elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Formerly advertised under the slogan, "It's kind to your throat."

Eurasia Irredenta
Fighters for Italian statehood in the 19th century used the slogan "Italia Irredenta": unredeemed Italy, that is, the lands still held by Habsburgs and other foreign powers. Their goal of course was to redeem it, place these areas under rule by Italians and fold them into one kingdom.
Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity and/or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. It is a feature of identity politics combined with cultural and political geography. Since most borders have been moved and redrawn at one point, a great many countries could theoretically present irredentist claims to their neighbours.

Cf. "the mad Irredentist" with whom V. is rumored to have run off to Paris. V.http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?search=irredentist&fulltext=Search

Irredentism is similar to so-called "pan-" movements, such as the "Pan-German movement that emerged in the late 19th century. The difference is that irredentists seek territory, whereas "pan-" movements have the more ambitious aim of seizing control of any state that has some citizens of the "pan" ethnicity, or a related ethnicity. Thus during World War I some German politicians fantasized about controlling Belgian, since the Flemish were Germanic "kin."
'Turania'
Turanism of page 756.

Page 762

Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917), noted English actor.

arrack
an Asian alcoholic beverage like rum that is distilled from a fermented mash of malted rice with toddy or molasses.

clepsydra
water clock.

Page 763

taking flannel
Speculation: metaphor constructed in parallel with "take silk." On appointment as a Queen's Counsel—a senior sort of lawyer in England—the practitioner puts away his or her old robes and assumes a new one made of silk. Did Halfcourt come late to a profession in which the customary apparel is made of flannel? If so, which profession?
To the British mind (mine) it suggests putting on flannels, the most common type of trousers in civilian life then. Maybe as opposed to khaki etc., i.e. putting on 'civvies', sort of going undercover. 'Flannel' is also an old British term for what we now call 'spin'.

P&O steamer
Pacific and Orient line, British steamship company.

the Great Bitter Lake
The Great Bitter Lake is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal.

Karachi
Karachi, located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, northwest of the Indus River Delta, is the most populated city in Pakistan. It is the financial and commercial center as well as the largest port of the country. The metropolitan area and its suburbs comprises the world's second most populated city.

Kiamari
Kiamari is one of the neighborhoods of Kiamari Town in Karachi, Pakistan.

the Northwestern Railway
The North Western Railway (NWR) of India was formed in January 1886, an amalgam of a number of smaller railways, principally the Sind, Punjab and Delhi Railway. The division of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 saw the rail lines of the NWR divided between India (1,900 miles) and Pakistan (6,900 miles).

the Indus
The Indus is the longest and most important river in Pakistan and one of the most important one on the Indian subcontinent. Starting in the Tibetan plateau the Indus flows, through Kashmir, in a southernly direction along the entire length of Pakistan and merges into the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

the plains of Sind
fertile plains around the Indus river in the center of Sind (Sindh) province, Pakistan.

Nowshera
Nowshera is a major city in the North-West Frontier Province, Paksitan. It is known for its Cantonement, the site of Pakistan Army's School of Artillery.

Durghal station
???

Malakand Pass
The Malakand Pass is a mountain pass in India.

Karakoram Pass
The Karakoram Pass, on the boundary of territory controlled by India and China, is the highest pass on the ancient caravan route between Leh, Ladakh and Yarkand in the Tarim Basin.

East Turkestan
East Turkestan, largely inhabited by Turkic people, is the part of greater Turkestan in Xinjiang, China and far eastern Central Asia. Marco Polo passed Turkestan in the year of 1272.

might as well all be on a Cook's tour
Cook's is still in business selling package tours. What cost Auberon months of hardship and danger, groups might now visit as tourists.

the Tungus
The Tungus, called the Evenks since 1931, are a Siberian ethnic group who live in the Siberian taiga from the Yenisei and Ob river basins to the Pacific Ocean and from the Amur River to the Arctic Ocean. The original home of the Tungus was in the vicinity of Lake Baikal but later migrated eastward to the current habitat. The Tungus are closely related to the Manchus and, before 1920, practiced a shamanistic religion. Their language is a close relation of the Mongolian and the Turkic ones, and the written language was created only in the late 1920s. First mentioned as “exhibits” in the White City, P.23.

the Yenisei
The Yenisei, a river in Russia flowing from Mongolia through Siberia into the Arctic Ocean, is the fifth longest in the world. It is slightly shorter but with 1.5 times the flow of the Mississippi-Missouri.

bergut
A golden eagle used by the Kirghiz Tatars, who call it Bergut or Bearcoot, for the capture of antelopes, foxes and wolves.

Altai
Altai is a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the great rivers Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei have their source.

Page 764

Irkutsk
Irkutsk is located about 45 miles northwest of Lake Baikal but 3,100 miles east of Moscow. It is one of the largest cities in Siberia. The city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei. A small river, the Irkut, from which the city takes its name, joins the Angara directly opposite the city. Irkutsk's main industries are timber, aluminum and minerals.

the Angara
The Angara is a 1,150-mile long river in Irkutsk Oblast, southeastern Siberia, Russia. It is the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal, and is a headwater of the Yenisie.

Tushuk Tash

Also called Shipton's Arch. Tushuk Tash, the highest natural arch in the world, is a very crumbly conglomerate arch in Kara Tagh range 25 miles west-northwest of Kashgar, Xianjiang, China. The National Geographic team measured the arch at 1,200 feet high (about the height of the Empire State Building) with a estimated span of 180 feet. Tushuk Tash means Pierce Rock ("a rock with a hole in it"). Tushuk Tash was made known to the outside in 1947 by English mountaineer Eric Shipton but was "lost" because of the inaccurate location given. In May 2000 National Geographic "rediscovered" it again and used the local name.

Kara Tagh
The mountain range near Kashgar where Tushuk Tash is located.

With a name meaning "black mountain" you would expect there to be more than one. Places going by this name or the similar names Karatau and Kara Dagh are dotted all over Central Asia. This one lies in extreme western China.

Is it significant that Karadağ is the Turkish name of Montenegro?

the Tunguska country
The Tunguska country, in its broadest geographical sense, is the Siberia taiga region where the Tungus people live—the Ob River in the west to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. Its core is the Tunguska Basins in east central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Territory) between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. Across the basin three Tunguska rivers—the Lower Tunguska, the Stony Tunguska and the Upper Tunguska—run through. Commonly the area of these three rivers is considered the home of the Tungus: the Tunguska country in its narrower definition.

And when we try to return . . . [w]e may not be able to
Kit had this experience when the liner Stupendica doubled herself.

Buriat
The Buriats live in southwestern Siberia to northwestern China and Mongolia. They include Buddhists and shamanists. Buriats, the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia, are of Mongolian descent and share many customs with their Mongolian cousins such as nomadic herding and living in yurts.

Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal lies in Southern Siberia, Russia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. It is the largest freshwater lake and 2nd largest by volume in the world. It is also the deepest (max 5,369 ft; ave 2,487 ft) and oldest (25-30 million years). It contains over one fifth of the world's and over 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

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Japanese "38th Year" Arisaka rifle
Japanes Arisaka Type 38 Rifle produced from 1905 to the early 1940s. The "38th Year" refers to the 38th Year of reign of the Emperor at the time of the rifle's introduction - 1905. The Arisaka Type 38 was based on the Mauser action and over-all design. It was designed by ("eponymous") Colonel Nariakira Arisaka (1852-1915).

Marwari
The Marwari horse, native to the Marwar region of India, are particularly well suited for both the desert environment and its role as a battle horse for the cavalry. It was said that the Marwari horse has a homing instinct and exceptional hearing famous for bring back riders who became lost in the desert. There were only three ways a Marwari left a battlefield: one when he was victorious, another carried his wounded master to safety and the last eaten by vultures after laying down his life for his master.

Ogdai
Ogdai (1185-1241), 3rd son of Genghis Khan, and the ruler of Mongol Emprie between 1229-1241.

the journey itself is a conscious Being

I am contaminated beyond hope, Mushtaq
Halfcourt's predicament vis a vis Yashmeen is reminiscent of that of Edward Ashburnham, Ford Madox Ford's "Good Soldier".

In what way, may I ask?

By being in love with a woman he cannot possibly have without breaking every rule of honor he lives by.

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the scholar Taranatha
Taranatha (1575-1634) is considered the scholar and exponent of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism.

the Tibetan Canon
The Tibetan Buddhist canono is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism.

the Tengyur
The Tengyur is the section of the Tibetan canon to which were assigned commentaries to the Buddhist teachings, treatises and abhidharma works. It constains 3626 texts in 224 volumes.

Rigpa Dzinpai Phonya
An excerpt of this book (Knowledge-Bearing Messenger) appeared in an anthology The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times (2000) by Carol & Philip Zaleski, pp. 349-354.

Rimpung Ngawang Jigdag
It should be Rinpung Ngawang Jigdag, the 16th-entury Tibetan Prince, (Rinpugapa of page 750), who obtained the glimpse of paradise by summoning a Yogi in a meditative visualisation.

when you come to a fork in the road, take it
A maxim of America's foremost Yogi, the baseball player Yogi Berra.

Grünwedel
Albert Grünwedel (1856-1935) was a German archaeologist of India, Tibet and Central Asia. He published a book about Buddhist iconography Bibliotheca Buddhica (1903). Of the four Turfan expeditions dispatched from Germany, he led the first (1902-1903) and the third (1906-1907).

Shambhalai Lamyig
fictitious book.

Laufer
Berthold Laufer (1874-1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. For 35 years he was virtually the only Sinologist working in the United States. He made four major expeditions to the Himalayas (from Encyclopedia Britannica): one sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York (1901-1904), another one by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1907-1910). He could read and speak not only Chinese, but Manchu, Japanese, Tibetan, and many other Asian languages (from Chicago Field Museum).

References

1. ↑ Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spake Zarathustra, A Book For All And None, Translated by Thomas Commmon, Introduction by Mrs. Forster-Nietzsche - e-text at Project Gutenberg

Annotation Index