Difference between revisions of "ATD 946-975"

Revision as of 14:58, 22 March 2007

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

Page XX

Sample entry
Please format like this.

Page 946

Young woman, there is money everywhere
Even this spiritual expedition has an accountant.

Interdikt line
That horizontal line on the map again.

Veliko Târnovo
North central Bulgaria on north side of Stara Planina range. Just for Bulgarian Pynchon uses at least two transliteration systems; where you see the letter â in this system, another will have u. Present-day transliteration from Bulgarian uses the letter ǔ. The sound resembles the U in "bump"; it's represented by Ъ in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet.

ruchenitsa
Bulgarian: a folk dance. The u represents the "uh" sound.

St. Tryphon's Day
St. Tryphon or Trypho is the protector of fields. Feast day is Feb. 1 in the Orthodox calendar; at the time of the action the western and eastern calendars had drifted 12 or 13 days apart, throwing the Gregorian (western) date toward mid-February.

Page 947

Dimyat
Bulgarian wine made from grapes grown near the Black Sea coast.

Misket
Muscatel wine.

May, I think
1912. The date gets pegged a few pages further on.

Kazanlâk
Central Bulgaria, south slope of Stara Planina range, halfway between Plovdiv and Veliko Târnovo.

Rozovata Dolina
Bulgarian: rose valley. The Dimitrov Dam may have filled part of the valley with a reservoir. Mild confusion: The Wikipedia entry gives the Bulgarian name as Rosova dolina.

between the Balkan range and the Sredna Gora
Mountain ranges running east-west across Bulgaria, the Balkan (Stara Planina) to the north. Stara Planina = Old Range, Sredna Gora = Central Mountains.

This is, in fact, Eastern Rumelia [1].

mutri
Bulgarian, literally: mugs, wry faces.

Page 948

Petrich
Extreme southwestern Bulgaria, near the Bulgaria/Greece/Macedonia triple point.

on Macedonian border
Today's maps reflect another century of boundary fights and negotiations. Petrich is not right on the present border, for example.

between Plovdiv and Petrich
Southwest quarter of Bulgaria.

the music stopped two years ago
I.e., in 1910.

Page 949

called out to, by their diminutives
You can make a list of "nicknames" from most any Slavic name. In Russian, for example, Aleksandr is informally called Alyosha, Sasha, Sashenka, etc. The irregulars are boys from the neighborhood and get addressed as such.

crossing R. damascena with R. alba
Species of roses. The species most used in attar-making is Rosa damascena.

Page 950

named the baby Ljubica
Croatian: violet (the flower). Commemorating Cyprian's toilette at Carnesalve, I suggest; see pages 881 and 891. The name is pronounced LYOO-beet-sah.

toroidal black iron antenna . . . one of those Tesla rigs
I.e., made to transmit or receive energy wirelessly.

Page 951

R.U.S.H.
The band Rush (see note p. 708, and [2]) has a song on the 1981 album Moving Pictures called XYZ (Why Yz-les-Bains?).

Mihály Vámos
Hungarian name, but vámos is also Spanish = go!

Szia, haver
Hungarian: Hello buddy!

Page 952

Zabraneno
Bulgarian: the forbidden. Same meaning as Interdikt.

an attar-factory rep from Philippopolis
Attar: attar of roses, a fragrant extract of the petals. Philippopolis is now Plovdiv, located 40-50 miles south of the valley.

casemate
In a fortification, an armored room or emplacement for artillery.

Page 953

it's only chlorine . . . you get phosgene
Accurate account of the process then used to produce phosgene. Today an activated carbon catalyst replaces the sunlight.

motoros
Cyclist, biker, referring here to Mihaly Vamos.

light is..the destructive element
Thematic,of course, when non-natural light is created....studies back to 'city illumination'. Cf. Telluride chapter.

millions of candles per square inch
Not easily converted to other units of measurement. Since the International Candle was defined as the light output from a specified wax candle, imagine a source emitting as much light as a million candles. Then imagine the sky covered with such sources, one to a square inch. No, it's unimaginably bright—disorienting, blinding, probably scorching.

Shipka
A very small village in Bulgaria's Central Balkan Mountains, near a mountain pass of strategic importance, which connects northern Bulgaria to Upper Thrace (East Rumelia). It was the site of a battle between the Russian army and the Ottoman Turks in 1877.

Sok szerencsét
Hungarian: good luck.

Page 954

Thrace
Thrace is a region in southeast Europe spreading over southern Bulgaria, northwestern Greece, and European Turkey.

Varna
Varna is a major seaport of Bulgaria on the Black Sea Coast. It is the third largest city of the country and a primary tourist destination.

Page 955

folie à trois
Folie à deux describes delusional behavior displayed by two people; here it's by three.

hebephrenic
Involving delusions, hallucinations, pointless and childish behavior.

raptors
birds of prey.

Sliven
Sliven is a town east of Kazanlâk, nearly the geographic center of the country, Bulgaria.

the Halkata
Bulgarian khalka: ring. The suffix -ta is a definite article.

Ulitsa Rakovsky
Bulgarian: Rakovsky Street. Georgi Rakovsky (1821-67), Bulgarian freedom fighter.

Page 956

krâchma
Pronounced like CRUTCH-mah. Bulgarian: tavern.

Byal Sredets
Cigarettes?

Zdrave . . . kakvo ima?
Bulgarian: Good health . . . what's the matter?

Bogomils
Heretical sect in Balkans with doctrinal links to Cathars and Albigensians.

Pavlikeni
Sources differ on the meaning: (1) Bulgarian Catholics; (2) members of a heretical sect with dualist (Manichean) doctrines influenced by beliefs of the Bogomils.

Hebrus River . . . Maritza
The Maritza or Maritsa flows west to east, draining Bulgaria between the Stara Planina (Balkan range) and the Rhodopes, then turns south and west to the Aegean Sea. The port at its mouth, in Greece, is called Evros, a name derived from Hebrus.

Page 957

Pythagorean akousmata
"Avoid beans." Go to "A" in the alphabetical index for a definition.

hegumen
In the Greek Orthodox Church, head of a religious community.

Tetractys
Cf page 219: Tetractys.

Zalmoxis
This passage could almost have been drawn from the Wikipedia entry.

Krâstova Gora
Bulgarian: name of a mountain or range.

Is this sentence the orphan of some narrative that's been cut? Disclosure of the baby's sex is on p. 949 and has neither a mountain nor a church in it.

narthex
Lobby or portico of a church.

Page 958

sympathetic spirits who had dug spaces beneath their own precarious dwellings to harbor her for a night or two at a time
Compare the annotations on stranniki and podpol'niki (page 663).

Bernadette o' Lourdes
young woman who is reputed to have seen visions of the Mother of the Divine at Lourdes in France. See Wikipedia.

Page 959

Oh, there won't be any war
Cyprian's self-discovered religiousness seems to make him overly optimistic--blind--to historical reality.

σχημα
In English, schema.

Νυξ
In English, Nux or Nyx.

Talking, for women, is a form of breathing
Compare p. 501: "a hundred women . . . all silent." Tying Noellyn/Yashmeen to Cyprian?

What is it that is born of light?
Cyprian trying to make sense of his epiphany on page 953.

Page 960

Hesychasts
Contemplative hermits in Orthodox Church; see Wikipedia entry. From the concise Brittanica: Hesychasm in Eastern Christianity, type of monastic life in which practitioners seek divine quietness (Greek hesychia) through the contemplation of God in uninterrupted prayer. Such prayer, involving the entire human being—soul, mind, and body—is often called “pure,” or “intellectual,” prayer or the Jesus prayer. St. John Climacus, one of the greatest writers of the Hesychast tradition, wrote, “Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with each breath, and then you will know the value of the hesychia.” In the late 13th century, St. Nicephorus the Hesychast produced an even more precise “method of prayer,” advising novices to fix their eyes during prayer on the “middle of the body,” in order to achieve a more total attention, and to “attach the prayer to their breathing.” This practice was violently attacked in the first half of the 14th century by Barlaam the Calabrian, who called the Hesychasts omphalopsychoi, or people having their souls in their navels.

The Hesychast usually experiences the contemplation of God as light, the Uncreated Light of the theology of St Gregory Palamas. The Uncreated Light that the Hesychast experiences is identified with the Holy Spirit. Experiences of the Uncreated Light are allied to the 'acquisition of the Holy Spirit'. Orthodox Tradition warns against seeking ecstasy as an end in itself. Hesychasm is a traditional complex of ascetical practices embedded in the doctrine and practice of the Orthodox Church and intended to purify the member of the Orthodox Church and to make him ready for an encounter with God that comes to him when and if God wants, through God's Grace (note earlier mention of an "anti-Grace"). Very different from attainment of Nirvana.

Transfiguration of Christ
See Transfiguration.

omphalopsychoi
see above. "Hesychasts condemned as "having their souls in their navel".

Shekhinah
The Kabbala calls this Spirit, Shekkinah, which, according to Harold Bloom, refers to the "feminine element in Yahweh." Shekkinah is God's maternal nature, Mother God, who broods over the Earth searching for and gathering the world's orphans and outcasts under her wings.
The author of Genesis tells us this Spirit hovered over the earth before creation.

shiny black accoutrements
See the delicious annotation to page 678.

Cosmas of Jerusalem
See the concise Wikipedia article.

Page 961

metempsychosis
Habitation by a soul of a different (or new) body; non-Orthodox concept related to reincarnation.

[i]f self-similarity proves to be a built-in property of the universe
As it does seem to be. Example: a map of streams draining the side of a mountain is similar (though on a different scale) to a map of rivers draining half a continent.

any mountain,any continent?

Um, no, it was an inexact statement, wasn't it. In a fairly broad sense, the way rivers join to form larger and larger streams is mirrored by the way tiny erosion channels join to form larger and larger gullies. Of course there's some continent that doesn't follow the pattern (Antarctica at present a pretty fair instance), and some mountain too (though I don't think of one offhand), but self-similarity is a widely encountered behavior.

Moon and electron and sleep, death as text examples, are 'universe(al)' analogies.

That is very much to the point, but self-similarity is stronger than analogy. "As above, so below" covers analogies but also behaviors at different scales that follow from common causes.

Brides of Night
A name (used by whom?) of the order Cyprian seeks to join.
This 'order' seems to be a creation of Pynchon's, an important metaphorical one. In Hesychasism, massive humility is stressed, as is the linked notion that God is light and can never be known (not even after the Beatific Vision). So, a Bride of Night is a humble 'nun' who is married to the darkness of the Unknown God.

Page 962

don't look back . . . or he'll take you below . . . down to America
Orpheus and Eurydice again.

Page 963

Plain of Thrace . . . Rhodopes . . . Pirin range
From the convent/castle around Sliven in the Stara Planina or Sredna Gora, south across the Maritsa valley, southwest across the Rhodope mountain range, southwest through the higher Pirins. Close to the present Bulgarian-Greek-Macedonian borders, on a generally southwestward track to the southwest corner of Bulgaria.

To move through it would be to struggle against time...
Time and Light are linked by Relativity Theory. According to the equations, as an object approaches the speed of light, time dilates. The speed of light cannot be exceeded; time speeds up to accomodate any such attempt. (Doesn't time slow down? I.e., from the point of view of an observer not on the speeding object, doesn't a clock on the object run slow?) This has nothing directly to do with the brightness of the light, however; light of whatever intensity travels at the same speed.

In mid-October . . . invaded Macedonia
1912, First Balkan War. The text does not mention Montenegro, which was active as well. Insofar as war aims played any role, everybody aimed to get Turkey out of the Balkans, but there was little unity beyond that.
The First Balkan War (1912-1913) was fought between the members of the Balkan League—Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro—and the Ottoman Empire. The league was formed under Russian auspices in the spring of 1912 to take Macedonia away from Turkey. Montenegro opened hostilities with Turkey on October 8, 1912 and the other members of the league delcared war on October 18. The Ottoman's army collapsed and disintegrated in first two months' fighting. The war officially ended with the signing in London on May 30, 1913 a peace treaty in which the Ottoman Empire lost almost all of its European territory including all of Macedonia and Albania—Macedonia was divided between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece; Albania was declared independent.

. . . by the twenty-second, fighting between Bulgarians and Turks was heavy around Kumanovo
Kumanovo is located in northern Macedonia near present-day border with Serbia, about 15 miles northeast of Skopje, the capital of the country. The Battle of Kumanovo (October 23-24, 1912) was a major battle of the First Balkan War. After the outbreak of hostilities, three Serbian Armies, from left to right the 3rd, 1st and 2nd, advanced southwards towards Skopje. They defeated the Ottoman's 7th and 6th corps at Kumanovo in two day's fighting. The Ottoman's armies retreated 50 miles southwards all the way to Prilep, and the Serbians entered Skopje on October 26 without a fight.

Adrianople
Now called Edirne. It is situated at the westernmost part of Turkey, at the present-day Turkish-Greek frontier near the Turkey/Greece/Bulgaria triple point.

mehana
???

from Philippopolis . . . Adrianople
From Plovdiv southeastward down the Maritsa to Edirne.

Ivanoff's Second Army
General Nikola Ivanov's Second Army of Bulgaria advanced from Philippopolis southeastwards to Adrianople along the Maritsa river.

Page 964

west through Strumica and Valandovo . . . the Vardar
Strumica is in the southeast of present-day Macedonia; Valandovo is about 8 miles to the southwest. The Vardar, passing by near Valandovo, is the major river of Macedonia, flowing north to south more or less.

the Tikveš wine country
A plain in the center of present-day Macedonia.

Monastir
Now Bitola in southwest Macedonia.

becoming a popular, perhaps someday a national, delusion.
That is, if these Turkish provinces can become nations, these horrors can be cleansed to become the national foundation myth. Nations based on ethnic division was in fact the basis for the peace settlements ending World War I.

between Veles and Prilep
In central Macedonia.

Page 965

by way of Kičevo and Prilep
Kičevo is in western present-day Macedonia, Prilep more in the middle. Two Serbian columns?

Babuna Pass
North of Prilep.

Russian Madsen guns and . . . Montenegrin Rexers
They refer to Danish Madsen light machine guns.

Page 966

I Zingari
Cf page 690: I.Z.
I Zingari (from the Italian for "the gypsies") is an English amateur cricket club which was formed on 4 July 1845, by a very aristocratic parentage. Also known as IZ, I Zingari is a wandering (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. Its club colours are black, red and gold, symbolizing the motto "out of darkness, through fire, into light"[3]. The colors, therefore, are the anarchist Red and Black, plus gold. "Out of darkness, through fire, into light" could be the motto of every seeker in AtD, and certainly applies to Yasmeen at the present moment.

Page 967

Sarakatsàni
Not a place but a people, Greek-speaking nomadic shepherds across the Southern Balkans well beyond the present-day borders of Greece.

Bukovo Pass
???

down into Ohrid
Extreme southwest of present-day Macedonia, by Lake Ohrid, a bordering lake shared between Macedonia and Albania.

Liman von Sanders
Otto Liman von Sanders (1855-1929), German advisor to Turkish military. In overall command of Turkish victories at the Dardanelles in 1915.

But now the Serbs knew they could beat them
A fatal conclusion, contributing to the recklessness of Serbian nationalism, and intransigence in the face of Ausrtrian demands in the wake of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Serbia suffered terrible reverses in World War I.

Page 968

Sveti Naum
Macedonian: St. Naum. Large monastery on the lakefront south of Ohrid.

the defeat at Monastir
The Serbian army decisively defeated the Ottoman army at the Battle of Bitola (Monastir) November 16-19, 1912.

Yanina
Now Ioánnina, in the Epirus province of present-day Greece.

Pogradeci, on the road to Korça
Now Pogradec, Albania, across the lake from Ohrid, and Korcë, 20 miles south of Pogradeci, southeastern Albania near present-day Greek border.

Page 969

Erseka
Now Ersekë, southeastern Albania near the Greek border.

Gramoz Range . . . Pindus
Grámmos and Pindos on present-day maps. The Pindos range runs mainly north-south in northwestern Greece; Mt. Grámmos marks the boundary of Greece and Albania (and also the boundary between two Greek provinces, one of them named Macedonia).

šarplaninec
Or šarplaninac. Named for the Šar Planina mountain range. It's a largeish working breed. Compare the Wikipedia article with the description of Kseniya's temperament.

Kseniya
The name (here in Macedonian form; elsewhere Xenia) means "guest, stranger."

Page 970

tungjatjeta
Albanian: hello! Literally: "may you have a long life"

Gras
1874 French rifle.

një rosë vdekuri
Albanian: "What we call a rose"...Allusion to Juliet's line from Romeo & Juliet: "that what we call a rose/ by any other name would smell as sweet"

Vëlla
Albanian: brother

Page 971

Gëzuar
Albanian: ???

Tosk
Principal southern dialect of Albanian, basis of the literary language.

Përmeti
Përmet on present-day maps.

Gjirokastra
Argyrokastron on old maps, Gjirokastër on new ones.

Vjosa
Vijosë on present-day maps.

Page 972

Muzina Pass
In Southern Albania it is 572 meters high.It connects Sarande [below] with the Drinos Valley. Wikipedia, German edition.

Corfu harbor ca. 1890

Agli Saranta
Present-day maps identify this Albanian Riviera town as Sarandë.

Corfu
Western Greek island off the Greek/Albanian coast.

Pantokratoras
South of Mouzaki, Greece. Famous for Byzantine icon screens.

XI
Eleven: a cricket team.

Lefkas
Or Levkás, Leucas or Lefkada, the next sizable island down the Greek coast from Corfu. Corinth and Lefkás were allies in the Peloponnesian War. Lefkás later was the capital of the Acarnanian League (3d cent. B.C.). The island was captured (1697) from the Ottoman Turks by Venice, which held it until 1797. There are ruins of Cyclopean walls and a temple to Apollo Leukates. Sappho is said, probably falsely, to have committed suicide by plunging into the sea from a cliff of the island. Lefkás is also known as Santa Maura. Columbia Encyclopedia.

Page 973

hot-pepper salamis
are often paired with fragrant bunches of oregano. The hot pepper is present in salamis as well. They are big and red or as in the typical soppressata version, have a squashed shape due to their ageing under weights.

the Compassionate
Yashmeen, Auberon and "the Compassionate" have come together before. On page 749 she wrote to him of her dream:

We ascended, or rather, we were taken aloft, as if in mechanical rapture, to a great skyborne town and a small band of serious young people, dedicated to resisting death and tyranny, whom I understood at once to be the Compassionate.

Speculation: The Chums of Chance = The Compassionate = "The Kindly Ones" = the Erinyes (Furies)?

fiacre
A small hackney carriage. [French, after the Hôtel de Saint Fiacre in Paris.]

Durazzo
Now Durrës, Albania, nearest coastal city to the capital, Tiranë.

casus belli
An occasion or cause for war.

Page 974

Volodya
Diminutive form of Vladimir. Not Colonel Prokladka.

a transaction in jade
bought/got jade low, sold high.

one of those turns
. . . And aren't there a lot of them through here.

Page 975

Garitsa
Latitude 39.6139 Longitude 19.9197 Altitude (feet) 3 Lat (DMS) 39° 36' 50N Long (DMS) 19° 55' 11E Altitude (meters) 0

Leadville Fan-Tan
A card game, played no doubt in the gambling halls of Leadville, Colorado. Wikipedia entry.

leptas
Bastard plural of lepton (Greek = a low-denomination coin). Plural in Greek is lepta.

tsingarelli
???

polenta
Originally Italian; dish similar to cornmeal mush.

yaprakia
Stuffed grape leaves (similar to dolmathes).

stoufado
Possibly an alternative spelling of stifado (Greek = beef and onion stew)?

Mavrodaphne
Red wine made in the Achaia region of Greece.

Hrisoula
The cat bears the name of King Yrjö's wife (GR 119).

karsilamas
a traditional Greek dance

Annotation Index