ATD 678-694

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

Page 678

exhibiting that sinister British craving for the dark and shiny...
Perhaps an Orwellian reference here:

'It's this bloody thing that does it,' she said, ripping off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it on to a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper.^[1]

Page 679

K. & K. Landwehr
German. K. und K. or K-K, Kaiserlich-Königlich, Imperial and Royal. Landwehr, the army, not the special security detachment.

Page 680

Sowieso
German: anyway.

Page 681

Liebestod
German: love-death. Denotes in particular the climactic scene in Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, but here means the fatal end of an affair.

Fachsimpelei
German: shop talk.

Ach, die Vetsera
German: ah, the Vetsera. Baroness Mary Vetsera was the mistress of Crown Prince Rudolf. In 1889 both were found dead at the Mayerling hunting lodge.

cherchons la femme
French: let us seek the woman. The phrase usually means to look for the woman who has set events in motion; here it's used ironically to mean that focusing on the search for the woman will mask any questions about Rudolf and his father.

Page 683

gemütlicher alter Junge
German: good old boy.

Page 685

[D.C.]
Musical direction, Italian: da capo = (repeat) from the top.

impersonating British idiots
Again and again in AtD we see the vital importance of being able to act the part of an idiot.

Page 687

Plafond Lumineux
French: luminous ceiling.

Page 688

we risk being divided in two . . . Atonement, in any case comes much later
A superbly constructed wordplay. "Atonement" means seeking and gaining release from guilt or ostracism, but the word is constructed from "at one." So the risk of splitting in two is followed, at length, by becoming one again.

Page 690

irreversible, pitiless
Definition of a Doomsday Machine. See Dr. Strangelove and too many other authorities to count.

Charlottenburg
District of Berlin, west and south of the city center. Woods, a castle.

Page 691

carbonyl chloride
Phosgene.

References

1. ↑ 1984, George Orwell, 1948, Ch. X

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