ATD 57-80
- Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.
Contents
Page 57
"Her name was never far from the discourse of the day."
Another reference of something w.r.t. the day.
Page 58
The "lumeniferous AEther"
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in Gravity's Rainbow (695).
"a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment"
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. Wikipedia entry
Particle or Wave? "...one finds in the devout aetherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete"
Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)
Töpler influence machine
A machine for producing electrical charges. [Wikipedia]
in Berlin
1881.
Page 59
Ohio
Harks back to M&D's visit with George Washington.
Northern Ohio Insane Asylum
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76,) believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.
"Originally known as the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds,was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh donated by the Garfield family." [1]
Page 60
Aether reports
Associations of light with "wind."
Roswell Bounce
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.
The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. Wikipedia entry
Page 61
"Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected."
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in Gravity's Rainbow (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.
"Blinky" a "walking interferometer"
Wikipedia entry on Interferometers
box job
Safecracking. [cite]
Page 62
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.
Page 63
O.D. Chandrasekhar
Perhaps a nod to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the Chandrasekhar Limit which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where Chandra is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to spacein hindu cosmology ,alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.
out, it
Typo: missing opening double-quote.
Page 64
Photography
Light tied to silver and chemistry.
Page 66
murders in Ravenna
There is a Ravenna, Ohio. TRP may have trimmed the explanation from an earlier draft?
Lorain County
Greater Cleveland. [Wikipedia]
Page 67
Beast Without Shame
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on page 36: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."
Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).
Merle and Dally
Merle's family situation (single father, smart aleck daughter, mother who took off) is identical to that of Vineland's protagonist Zoyd Wheeler.
Page 68
"...have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear...?
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."
Page 69
"some larger plan"
May be talking about writing Against the Day itself.
Page 70
'seng
Ginseng. Panax sp. The "red berries" Merle refers to.
American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons at the LOC.
Page 71
Ottumwa
City in Iowa. [Wikipedia]
Albert Lea
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from Gravity's Rainbow (710).
Page 72
"brightly lit against the stormy days"
"thorned helixes"
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?
Premo
1903. [cite]
Brownie
1900.
"calm as a sharpshooter"
Allusion of camera as a gun.
"There was always plenty of bell-hanger work"
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual light-related job (photography), to sound-related and electricity-related jobs.
Page 73
frog-bonding
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [source], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term.
Skip
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from Gravity's Rainbow. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
Israel Potter (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light--and sadness.
Page 74
two bits
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [calculator]
Page 75
"She watched the invisible force at work"
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about sound and electricity, on top of his usual job about light, closes with an image of the blowing wind, the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an alchemist [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.
San Juans
[map]
Page 76
Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle.
"photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff"
Second allusion of Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).
Page 77
Webb Traverse
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?
Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.
In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
"alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do"
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone
Wikipedia entry on Silver Fulminate
Page 78
The Anti-Stone
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".
This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud" reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said about the detonation of the atomic bomb Trinity: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]
"breathin in those fumes"
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.
Page 80
"not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity"
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.
"as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice"
...like Skip the ball lightning.
Annotation Index
| Part One: The Light Over the Ranges |
|
|---|---|
| Part Two: Iceland Spar |
119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428 |
| Part Three: Bilocations |
429-459, 460-488, 489-524, 525-556, 557-587, 588-614, 615-643, 644-677, 678-694 |
| Part Four: Against the Day |
695-723, 724-747, 748-767, 768-791, 792-820, 821-848, 849-863, 864-891, 892-918, 919-945, 946-975, 976-999, 1000-1017, 1018-1039, 1040-1062 |
| Part Five: Rue du Départ |
