Difference between revisions of "ATD 149-170"

Revision as of 11:18, 14 December 2006

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

Page 149

meteorite
Cf Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg.

Page 150

Tammanoid creatures, able to deliver votes
As in "Tammany Hall", the often corrupt political machine that played a role in New York City politics for nearly two centuries. Wikipedia entry.

Page 151

the Eskimo view
But cf page 142, where the Eskimos are "eager" to help.

Panic fear... affecting pose
Although there are hints in the previous pages, here is where the parallels with 9/11 become too clear to ignore. Pynchons' presenting 9/11 as a story of a meteor dug from the ice will no doubt fill pages of analysis soon. To start, though, Pynchon critiques post-9/11 opportunism ("many in the aftermath did profit briefly by... afecting that pose"). For a full, spoiler-filled discussion, see Against the Day and September 11

a cargo ship... in whose hold... kept in restraints... stirred a figure with supernatural powers Also reminiscent of King Kong, where the chained ape is transported by ship to New York.

Page 152

beautiful patterns
Cf page 81.

Page 153

recent incorporation
1898. Wikipedia

Pages 154-155

I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY
From the description of the gate to hell in Canto III in The Divine Comedy Volume I: Inferno by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Pynchon quotes from the modern translation by Mark Musa:

"I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,

I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,

I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE.

JUSTICE IT WAS THAT MOVED MY GREAT CREATOR;

DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,

AND HIGHEST WISDOM JOINED WITH PRIMAL LOVE.

BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS

WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY.

ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER."

Note that Pynchon echoes the word "race" on the previous page: "an embittered and amnesiac race".

From the Journals of Mr. Fleetwood Vibe...
The short narrative spanning pp.138-155 bears some of the hallmarks characteristic of the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft: (1) a narrator (Fleetwood) who relates a series of horrible, cosmic events in the form of a memoir or journal entry; (2) a slumbering entity, or "visitor" (p149), mistaken for a more mundane object (meteorite, in this case), and; (3) the incapacity of humans to anticipate or respond to the foreignness of this cosmic vistior and its actions. Given that this horrible thing was retrieved from the Arctic, it is reminiscent of Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (though, Antarctic in setting; 1931; Wikisource text of the novella) and, given the meteor-like form of this visitor, "The Colour out of Space" (1927; Wikisource text of the story).

Hunter Penhallow's escape might be read as a happy ending getaway inversion of the claustrophobic opening sequence of Gravity's Rainbow, where nobody gets saved; "in this world brought low" echoes "the Light that hath brought the Towers low" on the final page of Gravity's Rainbow..."Light" may prefigure Against the Day's treatment of that subject, too.

The disorientation that Hunter experiences (city streets skewing, finding a mysterious groups of people) echoes Lew Basnight's encounter with Drave's group (p39).

Page 156

rival school hues
Yale: blue and white. Harvard: crimson white, and black.

"Mr. Rinehart"
Anachronism from 1900. info

Page 157

"crimson" is cognate with "worm"
Largely true. The American Heritage Dictionary gives the etymology for worm as "Middle English, from Old English wurm, variant of wyrm." The root wyrm in turn derives from the Indo-European base wer-², meaning to turn or bend. (Words descended from wer-² include stalwart, weird, vertebra, wrath, wrong, wrestle, briar and rhapsody.) The modern word crimson derives from Middle English cremesin, which (via one of several alternative pathways) comes from Arabic qirmizy, a word based on qirmiz, the kermes insect. This insect, which lives on the Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera), was an early source for red dye but fell out of favor after the introduction of cochineal. The Arabic name for this insect probably stems from the Sanskrit kṛmi-ja-, referring to a red dye produced from worms. The -ja is from an Indo-European root *gene-, meaning "to produce" (whence, ultimately, our word "gene" and the -gen in chemical element names). The other component, kṛmi-, means "worm", and takes us back to Indo-European wer-².

"no professional football"
NFL founded 1902. cite

Page 159

meat lozenges
Lightweight for hikers. "Brand's meat lozenges, which are about the size of a four-penny piece and a quarter of an inch thick" cite

Page 160

Dittany
Greek herb symbolising love. Wikipedia

Page 162

Sillery
Wine from French commune. Wikipedia

Page 164

Logical paradoxes
Fleetwood has presented Kit with a statement similar to the notorious liar paradox with "...you shouldn't trust anything I have to say about this family." Wikipedia

Whether the statement actually qualifies as a paradox is not immediately clear. Fleetwood is not just saying the clearly paradoxical "you shouldn't trust anything I have to say," which is self referential in the manner of the liar paradox. He is specifically referring to some sentences he might utter "...about this family." Unless we are willing to interpret Fleetwood's sentence itself as being about his family, and not just some other sentences he might utter, it is not paradoxical. Fleetwood is a member of the family himself, so he seems to be making a statement that denies that the statement itself can be trusted. It makes a statement that is about what a member of the family says, and making a statement about what a member of the family says can be interpreted, in a very general sense, as a statement about his family.

Page 166

hair ropes
Cowboy superstition: horsehair ropes kept snakes away.

"stand your ground"
Ellmann tells a similar story about Joyce's father facing charging riders in Phoenix Park.

Page 167

...it was a time honored principle to do nothing for free [...] Trust me. Buy Rand shares
There seems to be a double meaning here. The text implies that Rand is a gold mining company (does anyone know if this is/was a real company?). Regardless, Yitzhak and Fleetwood are talking about South Africa, where the rand is the currency, the Krugerrand is a gold coin, and the Witwatersrand is the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built. On another level, however, it seems as though Pynchon is mocking the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is often characterized as a defense of selfishness or strong individualism. Pynchon previously parodied Ayn Rand and her Theory of Objectivism as "Mafia Winsome" and her "Theory of Heroic Love" in V.

See also page 146.

war going on
The Second Boer War started 11 October 1899. Wikipedia

Page 168

Eastern Question
Europe's concern with post-Ottoman Turkey. Wikipedia

"like Baku with giraffes"
Gravity's Rainbow mentions Baku by name three times, according to the Pynchon Pages index (http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html):

352; seaport capital of Azerbaydzhanskaya SSR, Soviet Union, on the west coast of the Caspian Sea; 353; Blobadjian "pursued through the black end of Baku by a passel of screaming Arabists" 354

After reading this section, and the oddly-separated text of Fleetwood's reverie about his pursuit of wealth in the Transvaal, and his murder of the Kaffir, the family name struck me, "Vibe" = "V" I be. Certainly this section brings back the African horror of "V."

Page 169

eGoli
Zulu name for Johannesburg.

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