Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 525-556

2009-01-30T16:41:00Z

Lemperute: /* Page 525 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 525==

'''Ostend''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page 521|page 521: Ostend]], a seaport in northwest Belgium. Among English-speaking tourists, Ostend (or Ostende) is best known as a ferry port.

'''Fishermen's Quai''' 
Fishermen's Quay, also called ''De Trap''. The shrimp boats come home here from the sea in the morning. Along the quay many stands sell lots of seafoods.

'''Boulevard van Isenghem''' 
A major thoroughfare in Ostend, locally called ''Van Iseghemlaan'', extending diagonally from seafront southwest through the city.

'''street-plausible''' 
Presentable.

'''Quai de l'empereur''' 
Since Ostende is in the Flemish part of Belgium this should be the Keizerskaai, a street along the old part of the harbour, 1919 renamed Vindictivelaan.

'''estaminet''' 
According to the OED - A café in which smoking is allowed. Now, any small establishment selling alcoholic liquor.

'''twelve-centime''' 
one centime is the French equivalent of one cent. A twelve-centime beer would cost 12/100 of a franc.

Although the definition above still stands, remember these are Belgian francs, a different currency than French francs.

'''Quaternions''' 
Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 130|page 130:Quaternions]]. Quaternions are a non-commutative extension of complex numbers (Hamilton, 1843). 

Analogy with the complex numbers (Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 132|page 132:complex number]]) being represented as a sum of real and imaginary parts, a + b''i'', where ''i''² = −1, a quaternion is defined as a combination a + b''i'' + c''j'' + d''k'', where ''i''² = ''j''² = ''k''² = ''i j k'' = −1, and a, b, c, d are ''four'' explicit real numbers. The non-commutative property refers to ''i j = −j i = k; j k = −k j = i; k i = −i k = j''. (i.e. ''i j ≠ j i; j k ≠ k j; k i ≠ i k''; etc.) The using of ''i, j, k'', the imaginary numbers (Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 133|page 133:imaginary number]]), led to the phrases of "the ''ijk'' lot" of page 533 and "creature of ''i-j-k''" of page 534.

'''Kellner''' 
German: waiter, barman. Use of the German word would be insulting to the Belgian barman.

Well, I don't think it may sound insulting for the waiter, as Ostend is in the part of Belgium were Flemish (Dutch) is spoken and in that language ''kelner'' is the word for waiter, which sounds like the German ''Kellner''. Pynchon misspelling, maybe? (DCB)

'''''demi''''' 
A half-pint glass (25 centiliters, actually).

'''Lambic''' 
Pron. ''lahm-BEEK.'' Unique Belgian beer style, sour and often thin in body.

'''skimmer''' 
Straw hat ("Panama").

==Page 526==

'''biquaternion''' 
Or "octonion," an innovation of English mathematician W.K. Clifford, [[ATD_243-272#Page_249|referred to on p. 249.]]

'''Barry Nebulay''' 
Pun on a term from heraldry, ''barry nebuly.'' The term barry (rhymes with "starry," not "carry") refers to a shield divided into an even number of parts by horizontal lines. Nebuly, possibly also spelled ''nebulée,'' signals that the lines are deformed into stylized "cloud" shapes. (Actually the dividing line looks more like interlocking parts of a jigsaw puzzle.) [http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/heraldry/partitions.html Here you can see an example.]

A play on the astronomical term ''nebulae'' is just conceivable, but then why "Barry"?

'''University of Dublin''' 
The Alma Mater of Hamilton, the father of Quaternion. He studied, graduated and taught at Trinity College, the University of Dublin, Ireland's oldest university.

If University College, Dublin, then Joyce had graduated in 1902. 

'''Quaternioneers''' 
Quaternion believers.

'''Gibbsian Vectors''' 
Vector Analysis (or Vector Calculus) developed by Willard Gibbs (Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29:Professor Gibbs]]) in 1881 and 1884. It is a branch of calculus that deals with vectors and process involving vectors. It is much more easily applied to phsics and other applied sciences than Hamilton's Quaternions (Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 525|page 525:Quaternions]]). 
A vector is defined by not only a magnitude but also a direction, such as a velocity vector, ''v'' is defined by ''v'' = a''i'' + b''j'' + c''k'',
where a, b, and c are the magnitudes of the velocity components in directions of ''i, j'' and ''k'' which are unit vectors, (not imaginary numbers as in Quaternion), with magnitude of 1. In three dimensional cases and ''xyz'' coordinate system is used then ''i, j, k'' are related to ''x, y, z'' directions ("''xyz'' people" of page 533); but they, in general, may be used irrespective of the notation of the coordinates.
Mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication), differentiation (''curl'' — Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 326|page 326:Curl]] and p. 536, ''Laplacian'' — Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 326|page 326:Laplacian]] and p. 536, etc) and integration can be applied to vectors. It is interesting to know that one of the two multiplication operations is called cross product; for unit vectors (''i, j, k'') perpendicular to each other, then, ''i × i = j × j = k × k = 0'', ''i × j = k'', ''j × i = -k'', etc. ([http://web.mit.edu/wwmath/vectorc/summary.html Vector Calculus]). 
A simple vector anyalysis example here: if ''k'', the unit vector, stands for the direction upward and g is the gravitational acceleration, then the acceleration vector, ''a'', for a projectile, is defined for downward action, (the ''i'' and ''j'' directions have zero components): 
:''a'' = -g ''k'' 
Integrating ''a'' would give the velocity vector, ''v'' 
:''v'' = -g t ''k'' 
for zero initial velocity case, and t standing for time. 
And integrating ''v'' would yield the position vector, ''h'', for the projectile 
:''h'' = -½ g t² ''k'' 
toward the sea level.

'''Quaternionists''' 
Quaternion believers, same as Quaternioneers.

'''Tasmania''' 
Tasmania is an island of the southern coast of Australia. Known for its relative isolation, it was a prison for English convicts in the 1800s

'''Having been inseparable from the rise of the electromagnetic''' 
In his 1865 work ''The Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field'', James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism. He put forth twenty equations, with twenty unknowns, in vector form (though different in notation and form than the equations that now bear his name) that completely described all known electromagnetic phenomena. In his 1873 treatise on the subject, he expressed the equations in the mathematics of quaternions. It appears that the quaternion form of the equations remained popular even though, at the behest of his publisher, Maxwell reverted to the 1865 form in the second edition (1881)--though they remain scattered throughout. In 1892 Oliver Heaviside (On the Forces, Stresses, and Fluxes of Energy in the Electromagnetic Field. ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.'' A, Vol. 183. pp423-480), while spewing scientific vitriol at the Quaternionists, reformulated Maxwell's original 1865 equations (Heaviside chose to remove the vector potential and scalar fields from the equations; the inclusion of these terms had served as Maxwell's justification for the use of quaternions), and provided the notation still in use today. See this [http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=60 PDF] for the evolution of Maxwell's equations.

'''Hamiltonian devotees''' 
The Quaternion faction, after William Hamilton, who devised the scheme.

'''Grand Hôtel de la Nouvelle Digue''' 
There is a Hotel Digue in the Seychelles; this is a New Hotel Digue by Pynchon?

Grand Hotel of New Dyke, may be a made up hotel name.

'''anterooms of death''' 
This metaphor is sometimes applied to concentration camps. Here the lyric "feel like I'm fixin' to die" seems more apposite.

'''Belgian Art Nouveau''' 
Art Nouveau, 1890(or 80) to 1914, explores a new style in the visual arts and architecture that developed in Europe and North America at the end of the 19th century. At its height (~1907), Art Nouveau was a concerted attempt to create an international style based on decoration. It was developed by a brilliant and energetic generation of artists and desisgners, who sought to fashion an art form appropriate to the post-Industrial Revolution modern age. 
Brussels was one of the Art Nouveau centers and represented different style from the others. The jewelers there, accepted as artists rahter than craftsmen, (together with those in Paris) defined Art Nouveau in jewelery and achieved the most renown. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau Art Nouveau]).

==Page 527==

'''dossing''' 
British slang for "sleeping", "staying overnight"

'''Russian nihilists''' 
:The following four are local, Belgian, not Russian, nihilists !
:: It only says Russian in the first edition.

'''Eugénie''' 
Female. Possibly named for Empress Eugénie (1826-1920), consort of French Emperor Napoleon III. Ultimately for St. Eugenia, 3rd-century Roman martyr whose feast is celebrated on December 25.

'''Fatou''' 
Female. A pseudonym? In view of the date of the action, certainly not named after [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatou the mathematician Fatou] (1878-1929).

Although there is no reference to ethnicity in the text, Fatou is an African name, very common in Senegal. It would be highly uncommon to find a white Belgian bearing that name in the early 20th century. And it would make sense if a revolutionary group named Young Congo had at least one or two African members!

'''Denis''' 
Male. Named for St. Denis or Dionysius, patron saint of Paris and of France, 3rd-century bishop of Paris, martyr, beheaded on the hill now called Montmartre. "Montjoie St. Denis!" was a warcry used by French troops in the Middle Ages. His intercession is effective against demonic possession and headache.

'''Policarpe''' 
Male. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarp Saint Polycarp] was a Christian bishop of Smyrna (now İzmir in Turkey) in the second century. He was stabbed and died a martyr after an attempt to burn him at the stake failed. His intercession is sought against earache and dysentery.

again, possibly African. It was very common for white missionaries in Africa to give their newly converted flock the names of famous Saints.

'''Young Congo''' 
Probably in reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks Young Turks], a Turkish revolutionary movement

'''Garde Civique''' 
A part of the Belgian army. According to the [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Belgium 1911 Britannica], "the mass of the garde civique does not pretend to possess military value. It is a defence against sedition and socialism."

'''French Second Bureau boys''' 
Deuxieme Bureau; French Intelligence.

'''''phalange''''' 
French: phalanx. A military (here mock-military) group ready for combat. 

It also conjures up memories of the early 19th century utopian socialist
Charles Fourier, who theorized that people should live communally in "phalanxes" of a specific number based upon their "passions." His solid ideas included equality of the sexes, but he also taught wacky things such as the moon being made of lemonade. Of particular relevance is his rejection of industrial civilization. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism]

'''"...until something had happened, something too terrible to remember..."''' 
Again this theme of an unknowable past transgression, here invoked almost as if the unknown signifies the other 'lateral' (a word which has cropped up at least a dozen times already) 'vector'.

'''the Digue''' 
French for "dyke"

'''Congo... Belgians''' 
The Belgian colonisation of the Congo was, as Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' makes clear, notable for its greed and brutality.

'''Leopold, King of the Belgians''' 
1835-1909, reigned 1865-1909. A man of almost Nixonian fiendishness. In the Congo he acted as sole proprietor and absolute ruler. The positive outcomes of his exploitation include ''Heart of Darkness'' and the phrase "crime against humanity."

'''co-conscious''' 
mental processes outside the main stream of consciousness but sometimes available to it — from Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary.

'''Force Publique''' 
Belgian armed forces operating in the Belgian Congo ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Publique Wikipedia]). "King Leopold's private army" may be a more accurate description.

'''rubber worker''' 
See above: One of the early missions of the FP was to increase rubber export quotas through forced labor and related atrocities.

==Page 528==

'''''khâgne''''' 
an informal term used by French students for Classes Préparatoires Littéraires, the two-year cycle of classes taken after the Baccalaureat (taken at age 17-18), to prepare for the entrance examination to the Ecole Normale Supeieure. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh%C3%A2gne khâgne]).

'''Reclus''' 
J. J. Élisée Reclus (1830-1905), French geographer but mainly educated in Germany. Several times he was forced to leave France because of his political views; he traveled widely in Europe, the British Isles, the United States, and South America and for many years lived in Switzerland. He was professor of comparative geography at the University of Brussels from 1895 to 1905. He had quite an extensive connection with various socialist and anarchist circles (met Bakunin while in Florence).Once he was imprisoned in Versailles in 1871 for his part in the ''Paris Commune''. In 1882 he initiated the ''Anti-marriage movement'' while in Geneva. [[http://academic.reed.edu/formosa/texts/reclusbio.html Reclus]).

'''Stirnerite''' 
Follower of Max Stirner, 19th century German philosopher and author of ''The Ego and Its Own,'' a work influential in anarchist thought. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner Wikipedia entry]. [[Max Stirner|Discussion...]]

'''''Anarcho-individualiste''''' 
i.e. he has doctrinal differernces with Stirnerism, strictly speaking; see P. 324, and "Eigenheit".

'''Leopold''' 
See [[#Page 527|p. 527]].

'''going down lately''' 
Being assassinated.

'''Sipido''' 
Jean-Baptiste Sipido (1884-1959), a Belgian socialist. Accusing the Prince of Wales of causing thousands of inocents were killed in the Boer War in South Africa, on April 5, 1900, Sipido leaped onto the foot board of the royal compartment right before the train left the North Railway Station (Gare du Nord), Brussel, and fired two (or one? as reported in ''The Manchester Guardian'', or four? as stated in the text here) shots through the window but missed everyone inside. He was arrested, tried and acquitted. The leader of the House of Commons called the acquittal a "grave and most unfortunate miscarriage of justice." ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Sipido Sipido]).

'''Prince... of Wales''' 
(Maud Gonne's husband claimed to have been involved in another such plot.)

'''Hippodrome''' 
Hippodrome Wellington, a horse racing track in Ostend built in 1883. The facility hosts both harness and flat racing events. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippodrome_Wellington Hippodrome]).

'''Royal Bathing Hut... twenty francs''' 
A bathing machine ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathing_machine bathing machine])? The King of Belgium certainly would not want to be seen in a swimsuit on a public beach... It seems unlikely, though, that such a royal bathing machine would be for hire.

'''twenty francs''' 
???

==Page 529==

'''picric family''' 
The explosive picric acid (2,4,6-trinitrophenol) and its derivatives. For picric acid, Brugère's powder and Designolle's powder, [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/PER_PIG/PICRIC_ACID_or_TRINITROPHENOL_C.html see this Britannica article.]

'''Brugère's powder''' 
See "picric family" above.

'''Designolle's''' 
See "picric family" above.

'''Monsieur Santos-Dumont''' 
Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), a pioneer of aviation from Brasil. Check out [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont Wikipedia] to get a look at the way he was wearing his "trademark Panama hat".

'''Green Hour''' and '''''l'heure vertigineuse''''' 
Absinthe-drinking time. The liqueur is green. In French, ''l'heure verte,'' so ''vertigineuse'' (vertiginous, causing dizziness) is a pun on the word for "green."

'''Rocco and Pino''' 
Rabid Quaternionists and sudden friends of Kit Traverse.
:No, they were not mathematicians at all, let alone Quaternionists, but two "Italian naval renegades" !!
::"Rocco and Pino" are, in temperament, something like the "Mason and Dixon" of manned-torpedoes... cf. the "torpedo" (i.e., "Electrick-Eel") of ''Mason & Dixon''.

'''Whitehead works in Fiume''' 
Anticipating GR's V2 works.

''Robert Whitehead'' (1823-1905), an English engineer. He developed the first self-propelled torpedo in 1866. He attended Manchester's Mechanics Institute, worked in a shipyard in Toulon (1844), France, and as a consultant engineer in Milan (1847), Italy. Later he moved to Trieste and in 1856 became a manager of a company called ''Founderia Mettali'' (later, ''Stabilimento Tecnico di Fiume'') in Fiume producing ship steam boilers and engines which were the most advanced of that era. He also developed the first self-propelled torpedo which was very popular. Whitehead's torpedo was propelled by a compressed air engine, carried 18lbs dynamites and a self-regulating device which kept the torpedo cruising at a constant preset depth. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Whitehead Whitehead]].

''Fiume'' is now Rijeka, Croatia. Trieste is on the northwestern edge of the Istra Peninsula, Rijeka is east of it. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rijeka Fiume]].

Interesting sidebar: Whitehead's fortune from Fiume and the torpedo went solely to his granddaughter Agatha Whitehead, who married Baron von Trapp. The Von Trapp money came from Robert Whitehead, and most of the von Trapp singers were his great-grandchildren.

'''''Alberta''''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_yacht Wikipedia] entry on royal yachts goes back to the 17th century but doesn't include ''Alberta.'' The craft does get a mention in [http://www.bouncing-balls.com/timeline/people/nr_leopoldmorel.htm this page on Leopold and the Congo.]

'''Siluro Dirigibile a Lenta Corsa''' 
or S.L.C. "slow course torpedo", "slow-running torpedo". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_torpedo Wikipedia] Italy‘s Navy was among the first to experiment with manned torpedos. Though according to [http://web.ukonline.co.uk/chalcraft/sm/chariots.html this site] this did not happen until 1935, Italian frogmen as early as October 31, 1918 made it into the harbour of Pula with the help of a modified german torpedo and sank the former Austrian but by then since a few hours Croatian/Slovenian/Bosnian battleship SMS ''Viribus Unitis''. [http://www.geocities.com/tegetthoff66/viribus.html website]

The Wikipedia entry linked above doesn't contain the Italian word ''dirigibile'' (steerable), which sets up the torpedo as a counterpart of the dirigible ''Inconvenience.''

:I suspect there's a connection between the torpedo and "Not the usual lateener, in fact appearing to have neither sails, masts, nor oars" in Miles' reversed vision, [[ATD_243-272#Page_250|page 250.]] Needs work, though.

==Page 530==

'''exfiltrate''' 
Make a surreptitious escape (as "infiltrate" means to make a surreptitious entrance).

'''''Macchè''''' 
Italian: certainly not, not a chance. And in Pynchon's Italian is used as an all-purpose exclamation.

'''''Ehi, stu gazz', categoria''''' 
Stu gazz' is a dialect representation of ''sto cazzo'', literally meaning ''this dick here''. Normally you could translate the sense of the sentence as: ''yeah, why not, a fucking category! ''. -- blicero2 - 2007.02.22

'''''mezzogiornismo''''' 
Denigrating the Italian South. Mezzogiorno means ''midday'' in Italian but refers generally to Southern Italy.

==Page 531==

'''Bruges''' 
An exceptionally beautiful Belgian town of canals which is thus one of several towns known as the 'Venice of the north'. In the 14th cettury Burges already became an international finanacial and trading center, but
started to decline in the 15th century. In the 20th century, however, the city was discovered by the international tourism and the medieval heritage turned out to be a new source of wealth. A new harbor of Zeebrugge, 10 miles outside of Bruges at the North Sea coast, brought new developments and new industries to the region. For the city and its history see ([http://www.trabel.com/brugge.htm Bruges]).

'''Raoul's Atelier de la Vitesse''' 
French: Ralph's Speed Shop.

'''Ghent''' 
Belgian city, less than 30 miles southeast of Bruges, on the rail line about halfway between Ostend and Brussels. It is the fourth largest city of Belgium. It is bigger than Bruges but not as famous as a tourist attraction. But the city is a showcase of medieval Flemish wealth and commercial success. See ([http://www.trabel.com/gent.htm Ghent]).

'''Daimler six-cylinder''' 
Six cylinder engine (most likely a "straight six", as V6 engines weren't made before 1950) manufactured by the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (Daimler Motor Company), German engine and later automobile manufacturer (of the famous Mercedes), in operation from 1890 until 1926. Later merged with the Benz Co. and thus was born the Mercedes Benz. Merged with Chrysler in 1998 and is now know as Daimler AG. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_Motoren_Gesellschaft]

'''a hundred horsepower''' 
In the early 1900's, Daimler's top straight six cylinder engines (see above), the only ones being manufactured in continental Europe, could manage an impressive 75 horsepower. So the engine here is most likely a supercharged version of a car engine.

'''''guaglion''''' 
italian (dialectal) = boy, young person

'''Umeki Tsurigane''' 
Umeki is typically made with some combination of the various kanji for "plum" (ume) and "tree" (ki), though one has the ki being the character for "ghost/devil" and one obscure reading that's entirely redundant, where ume is "plant" (usually read ue). There is one where ume is the kanji for "buried or embedded". Tsurigane, means a "temple bell", which can stand alone or be followed by the grass kanji to mean "bellflower" (lots of botanical stuff happening here, if that means anything; hardly the only example in ''AtD''). Given the search for Shambhala going on, "Buried Temple Bell" seems a likely translation, at least at this point; the botanical meanings could perhaps emerge later.

Or, another terrible name-pun? "You make [m]e sore again." See another on P. [[ATD_748-767#Page_757| 757]]

'''Professor Knott''' 
Cargill Knott (1856-1922), professor of physics; seismologist. See his biography [http://www.penicuikcdt.org.uk/Cargill_Knott.html here].

==Page 532==

'''Kimura''' 
Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29:Kimura]] and [[ATD_318-335#Page 318|page 318:Shunkichi Kimura]].

'''drover's sombrero''' 
Cowboy hat.

'''furoshiki''' 
Japanese all-purpose cloth. Can be worn, used as wrapping, or used as a bag.

'''taupe''' 
A brownish gray.

'''boilermakers and their helpers''' 
[[ATD_358-373#Page_360|See annotation to p. 360.]]

'''Anharmonic Pencil''' 
''Pencil'' is a term commonly used in Synthetic Geometry. Straight lines incident with a plane - coplanar lines - and passing through a common point are said to be concurrent lines and the set of all such concurrent coplanar lines is called the ''pencil''. (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 456|page 456:Pencil]]). For a figure and a not quite precise definition see [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Pencil.html pencil]. If a, b, c and d, are four distinct coplanar lines and their double ratio λ = (abcd) = -1, then a, b, c, d are called a harmonic quadruple of lines; they are said to constitute a ''harmonic pencil''. A ''pencil'' which is not harmonic then is known as ''anharmonic pencil''. See Pencil (lines 8-9), Double Ratio λ (lines 32-35) and Harmonic Pencil (line 39) of [http://ca.geocities.com/ingsaler6/mathworld.html Mathworld].

'''''Comptes rendus''''' 
''Comptes rendus des séances hebdomadaires,'' Proceedings of the weekly sessions (of the Academy of Sciences), published from 1835, later (ca. 1935) retitled ''Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences,'' Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences. (Notice that the academy didn't see the need to specify "French." Take that, Royal Society of London!) For about a century, one of two journals so universally circulated and recognized that bibliographies nearly always cited them in nickname form: ''C.R.'' The other was ''Ber.,'' short for ''Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft,'' Reports of the German Chemical Society (from 1868).

'''De Forest''' 
Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29:De Forest]].

'''Gibbs''' 
Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29:Professor Gibbs]].

'''Maxwell Equations''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page 58|page 58:Maxwell Field Equations]].

==Page 533==

'''aniline teal''' 
The wallpaper dye; aniline dyes were the first synthetic dyes, discovered by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Perkin William Perkin] in 1858. Their intense and fade-resistant colors were very fashionable at the end of the nineteenth century. The dyes are also significant in ''GR'' as the products of I.G. Farben.

'''Heavisiders''' 
Oliver Heaviside (May 18, 1850 – February 3, 1925) was a self-taught English electrical engineer, mathematician and physicist who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, developed techniques for applying Laplace transforms to the solution of differential equations, reformulated Maxwell's field equations in terms of electric and magnetic forces and energy flux, and independently co-formulated vector analysis. Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of mathematics and science for years to come.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaviside].

'''Grassmanniacs''' 
Nineteenth century German mathematician and linguist, essentially the inventor/discoverer of vector space. Grassmann showed that once geometry is put into the algebraic form he advocated, then the number three has no privileged role as the number of spatial dimensions; the number of possible dimensions is in fact unbounded.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Grassmann].

'''in the mood for a clambake''' 
Anachronistic Broadway show tune? If so, the clambake in ''Carousel'' turns into a brawl; the assmebled factions of mathematicians could be in the mood for either a party or a brawl, apparently.

'''Monopole de la Maison''' 
Monopole of the House, a fanciful name of a fanciful drink. 
There is, since 1898, a well known restaurant called ''Monopole Lunch & Sea Grill'' in Plattsburgh of upper New York state. ([http://www.monopole.org Monopole Restaurant]). 
Most probably, it's the Magnetic monopole being referred here. In physics, a monopole is a magnet with a net magnetic charge, i.e. there is only one pole instead of two (so no net magnetic charge) as usual. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole Monopole]). It's existence had been theoretically predicted by various particle theories (superstring theory, etc) but never been proved experimentally. Proving the existence of a monopole would certainly earn a Nobel Prize.

'''Idiom Neutral''' 
An invented language, like Esperanto. Idiom Neutral dictionaries first appeared in 1902. It looks like a simplified Latinate language and it grew out of Volapuk, another "auxiliary language." It was abandoned by the ''Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal'' in 1908.

For a list of all the invented languages that linguists are keeping track of, including Klingon, try [http://linguistlist.org/forms/langs/GetListOfConstructedLgs.html Eastern Michigan's Linguist List]. And don't forget to click on the link to "Browse sites devoted to constructed languages."

'''phatic''' 
Basically, small talk or chatter. Words used to convey fellow-feeling rather than to impart information.

'''''Kampf ums Dasein''''' 
German: struggle for existence.

'''Q-brother''' 
Fellow Quaternioneer or Fellow Quaternionist.

'''We are the Jews of mathematics, wandering out here in our diaspora--some destined for the past, others the future, even a few able to set out at unknown angles from the simple line of Time, upon journeys that no one can predict''' 
In keeping with the analogy of Judaism, those "few" people within the Quaternionists "able to set out at unknown angles" are most likely being compared to Kabbalists who claim to partake in a mystic "journey to the Throne of God through the mythological realm of the seven heavens" (Armstrong, A History of God--p. 247). Throne Mysticism in Kabbalah is explored extensively in Gravity's Rainbow.

Perhaps this is obvious to some, but these "Jews of Mathematics" worship the Hamiltonian Tetractys [http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/dublin/]; those other Jews worshipped the Tetragrammatron. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton] The proliferation of 4s continues.

==Page 534==

'''Poiret gown''' 
A gown designed by Paul Poiret (1879-1944), a French fashion designer based in Paris. "In the annals of fashion history, Paul Poiret is best remembered for freeing women from corsets and further liberating them through pantaloons . . . it was Poiret's remarkable innovations in the cut and construction of cloting . . . Working with fabric directly onto the body, Poiret helped to pioneer a radical approach to dressmakeing that relied more on the skills of drapery than on those of tailoring." (from [http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={0DC3D00F-4611-4F91-8DC2-CC3C1A5C48D5} MetMuseum],
New York Metropolitan Museum's Special Exhibitions, ''Poiret: King of Fashion'', May 9, 2007 to August 5, 2007). For a picture of Poiret gown see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Poiretgown.jpg Poiret Gown]. ''The New York Times'' reported on February 1, 2007 that A Poiret Gown Brings $5,500 at [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07EFDA1538F93AA15756C0A967948260 Christie's Auction] - the gown was made in 1913 when Poiret was at the height of his career. For his bio see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Poiret Poiret].

'''''green and long''''' 
Pickle, or... what?
: A green and long ''gherkin'' (a small, immature fruit of a variety of cucumber used in pickling).

==Page 535==

'''no-name wine''' 
1970s idiom for common European practice?

'''set theory''' 
Set theory deals with the properties of well-defined collections, or ''sets'', of entities - the ''elements'' or ''members'' of the set - conceived as a whole. The elements may be of a mathematical nature or non-mathematical. The set theory grew out of the German mathematician Georg Cantor's (1845-1918) study of infinite sets of real numbers.

The ''language of sets'' has become an important tool for all branches of mathematics, but is of very little relevance to the practice of mathematics in everyday life. As a source of metaphors, however, it's been quite productive; "subset," "superset," "universe," "intersection" and "Venn diagram" have found varying degrees of acceptance. Recasting Aristotle's syllogisms in set-theoretic language also makes them easier for many people to understand.

'''Hamilton . . . early genius''' 
Hamilton, according to ''Chambers Biographical Dictionary'', "at fifteen knew thirteen languages, had read Newton's ''Principia'', and commenced original investigations". At twenty-two, "while still an undergraduate, he was appointed professor of Astronomy at Dublin and Irish Astronomer-Royal"; at thirty "he was knighted".

'''Hamilton . . . in the grip of a first love''' 
??? 
Pynchon probably didn't mean Quaternion was Hamilton's first love, but its effect on him was similar to that of a first love. In 1843 at the age of 38 Hamilton invented the Quaternion, the first non-communtative algebra to be studied. He felt this would revolutionise mathematical physics, and he spent the rest of his life working on it. In 1853 he published a large volume, ''Lectures on Quaternions'', on his grand invention. The last seven years of his life, Hamilton was writing an 800-page book ''Elements of Quaternions'' modeling on Euclid's ''Elements''. The last chapter of the book was completed by his son after his death.

'''the Walt Whitman of English physics''' 
Whitman pops up again, last seen on [[ATD_489-524#Page_491|page 491]].

==Page 536==

'''Oscar Wilde''' 
Note that Wilde's Dorian Gray also undergoes a kind of bilocation.

'''Kursaal''' 
German: "cure hall" aka a spa or, more generally, a place of healthy amusement, eg casino.

'''vectors''' 
For serious minds, see Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 526|page 526: Gibbsian Vectors]], but let's follow Pynchon's lighter mood, here is a non-mathematical definition by Kamen (1995):
:''Many things have more than direction;''
:''The magnitude is also a question.''
:''With acceleration or force,''
:''And many more things, of course,''
:''It's vectors that make the connection.''

'''Curls''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 326|page 326: Curl]]: curl is a vector operator that shows a vector field's rate of rotation.

'''Laplacians''' 
Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (March 23, 1749 – March 5, 1827); French mathematician and astronomer who summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799-1825), translating the geometrical study of mechanics used by Isaac Newton to one based on calculus, known as physical mechanics.

He is also the discoverer of Laplace's equation. Although the Laplace transform is named in honor of Laplace, who used the transform in his work on probability theory, the transform was discovered originally by Leonhard Euler. The Laplace transform appears in all branches of mathematical physics — a field he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, much relied-upon in applied mathematics, is likewise named after him. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace].

:Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 326|page 326: Laplacian]]: Laplacian is a differential operator named after Laplace. The text here was talking about mathematical operations and operators — rates of change, rotations, partial differentials, Curls, ''Laplacians'', . . .

'''scream''' 
Scream motif.

'''beginning to appal''' 
By 1905 there had been years of outrage at conditions in the Belgian Congo, King Leopold's private fief. Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' had been published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899 and as a book in 1902. There were missionaries' accounts of the brutality, and newspaper reports. Leopold and his apologists published rebuttals. The Norton Critical Edition of ''Heart of Darkness'' contains an extensive collection of both.

'''baize''' 
Baize is a coarse woolen felt.

==Page 537==

'''broken symmetries''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_symmetry Broken symmetry] is a concept used widely in mathematics and physics. For a simplest explanation (good enough for the text here), this term means that an object breaks either rotational symmetry or translational sysmetry - when one can only rotate an object in certain angles or when one is able to tell if the object has been shifted sideways. For a little bit more detailed explanation see [http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/sethna/OrderParameters/BrokenSymmetry.html Identify the Broken Symmetry]; or even more [http://scienceweek.com/2005/sw050708-6.htm On Broken Symmetry].

'''''sphinxe Khnopffienne''''' 
refers to the Belgian symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), famous for his painting "The Caress", in which a female sphinx erotically lures a young man. The painting can be seen in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Khnopff wikipedia entry]

'''Pléiade Lafrisée''' 
in French, "friser" means to curl or twist. "La frisée" could mean "curled," by extension "twisted." The Pleiades is a cluster of hundreds of stars, though only a few are visible, sometimes referred to as The Seven Sisters. If Pleiades are Sisters, Pléiade is ''one'' Sister, so her name means Twisted Sister!

In Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the titan Atlas (you kow, the guy who was condemned to hold the sky on his shoulders for eternity) and the sea-nymph Pleione.

They are:
Maia, eldest of the seven Pleiades, was mother of Hermes by Zeus.
Electra was mother of Dardanus and Iasion by Zeus.
Taygete was mother of Lacedaemon, also by Zeus.
Alcyone was mother of Hyrieus by Poseidon.
Celaeno was mother of Lycus and Eurypylus by Poseidon.
Sterope (also Asterope) was mother of Oenomaus by Ares.
Merope, youngest of the seven Pleiades, wooed by Orion. In other mythic contexts she married Sisyphus and, becoming mortal, faded away. She bore to Sisyphus several sons.

Pléïade is also used in French to describe a group of talented people. When capitalized, it refers to a group of poets. It is also the name of the most prstigious collection of books published in French. If you make it to the Pléïade, you become an immortal author.

Lafrisée translates literally to "The Curly One"

'''''Conseilleuse''''' 
Female consultant?

Not an actual French word, but it's tolerable. If we were to describe somebody who counsels or gives advice (in the female form), it would be "conseillère". The suffix "euse" is sometimes used in French to denote a lesser form. In French Canada, for example, the word "violoniste" is used to describe a "violonist", and "violonneux" is used to describe a "fiddler". Therefore, "Conseilleuse" would suggest an unofficial counseler of sorts.

==Page 538==

'''retroversion matrix''' 
???

'''''Ma foi''''' 
Literally "My faith", i.e. "By my faith!", a mild exclamation of incredulity.

'''ten thousand francs''' 

Based on currency conversions relative to gold, this is equivalent to
about $30,000 US today.

'''piker''' 
Someone cheap or cautious, possibly named after people from PIke County, Missouri, who came to California in the 1800s, looking for work. They were poor, hence cheap.

'''what is a Quaternino?''' 
Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 525|page 525:Quaternions]] for a mathematical definition. From ''The Random House Dictionary of the English Languages'', The Unabridged Edition (1966): Quaternion is "a quantity or operator expressed as the sum of a real number and three complex numbers, equivalent to the ''quotient of two vectors''. The field of quaternions is not commutative under multiplication.".

'''Bertie ('Mad Dog') Russell''' 
'Mad Dog' seems to be used with heavy irony here. Bertrand Russell was known most for his rationalism, so to speak, his work in modern logic.
He did little in his public roles (at this time in AtD) that would have
him referred to as "crazy', as we say, beyond the social norm, "mad".
It might be argued that his use of 'logic' against philosophers such as Hegel and McTaggart within ''Against the Day'' showed up their 'madness'.
(Many did think McTaggart was a bit...different...for seriously not believing in Time.) McTaggart broke with Russell after an early influential friendship---Russell was the younger man and the influenced one. He said he was an Hegelian because of McTaggart--Russell wrote in his
Autobiography that McTaggart said he no longer wanted to meet/talk with him bcause he could no longer stand Russell's opinions.

[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1950/russell-bio.html Bertrand Russell] (1872-1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician and social critic. Best known for his work in mathermatical logic and analytic philosophy. In late spring of 1901 he discovered the so-called [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/ Russell Paradox], "the most famous of the logical or set-theoretical paradoxes. The paradox arises within naive set theory by considering the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. Such a set appears to be a member of itself if and only if it is not a member of itself, hence the paradox." (On-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). He won the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature in "recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought".

'''Barry Nebulay''' 
[[ATD_525-556#Page_526|See annotations to page 526.]]

'''Hegel... puns''' 
Probably refers to the fact that quite a lot of Hegel's philosophy deals with the is-ness of the world as we know and experience it.

On page 787 of Bertrand Russell's ''History of Western Philosophy'' is a summary, perhaps, of this remark about Hegel's puns: "as a result of analysis of the concept "existence", modern logic has proved this [Cartesianism, refuted by Kant, reinstated by Hegel] argument invalid....."

We know from other places that TRP himself seems to 'not like' Cartesianism. See 'cartesian' citations within this wiki.

==Page 539==

'''a vector quotient''' 
The result of one vector divided by another. According to the English dictionary definition of previous page this is just a Quaternion.

'''unit vector''' 
Unit vector is a vector with magnitude of one. The unit vectors in 3-dimensional space, ''i, j, k'', associated with ''x, y, z'' directions are used in defining a general 3D vector (Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 526|page 526:Gibbsian Vectors]]).

'''''square root of minus one''''' 
Imaginary number (Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 132|page 133:Imaginary Number]]). The imaginary numbers ''i, j, k'' are used in defining a Quaternion (Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 525|page 525:Quaternions]]).

''''Triangle Asana'''' 
A basic yoga pose.

[http://yoga.org.nz/postures/yoga_positions_images_page.htm Here are images of several basic poses.]

''''Dr Rao abruptly vanished'''' 
Might be a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner Martin Gardner]'s
[http://www.amazon.com/No-Sided-Professor-Fantasy-Mystery-Philosophy/dp/0879753900 "No-Sided Professor"]

''''Quadrantal Versor Asana'''' 
A triangle pose taken that extra dimension.

'''''"Uwe moer!"''''' 
Looks a lot like the Dutch "Uw moeder!" - a cry of astonishment ("Your mother!"), the equivalent to the black English "yo mama".

'''noncommutative''' 
A term typical to mathematics. A commutative equation is one that can operate in exact reverse and still yield the same results. 'Noncommutative' then suggests unidirectionality. The ability to go from point A to point B, but not from B to A.

'''reticule''' 
A woman's drawstring handbag; usually made of net or beading or brocade; also: A system of lines forming a pattern of squares at the focal plane of a telescope, used in micrometers.
[http://www.astunit.com/tutorials/glossary.htm]
:Isn't that sort of a red herring? "[P]roducing from her reticule a . . . watch" doesn't really allow of that second meaning. 
:It could be a pun, since a reticule/ handbag always shows its pattern of lines, and a watch (timepiece) is drawn from it. Remember that, e.g. railroad lines of tracks, are a sign of industrialism encroaching on the natural and the spiritual.

'''Vacheron & Constantin watch''' 
Made by a Swiss company founded in 1755. From 1819 to 1970 the name was as in the text, then the & dropped out. See the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacheron_Constantin Wikipedia entry.]

'''hunting-case''' 
For a pocket watch, a case with a hinged metal cover. More often called "hunter case" (and such a watch a "hunter").

==Page 540==

'''"haar rekening, ja?"''' 
''Her bill, yes?" (Dutch/Flemish) I.e., give the check to the lady.

Given the presence of Chris 'Kit' Traverse here, this very much suggests a reference to Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe, Elizabethan poet, playwright and contemporary of Shakespeare. Marlowe was stabbed to death in 1593, in murky circumstances, ostensibly over a bill or 'reckoning', though he was widely believed to have been involved in some form of espionage.

Strictly speaking "haar rekening" means that the lady pays for herself only. If Root wanted to make sure that Pléiade pays for the whole company he would have to say "de hele rekening voor de dame".

That is not correct; "haar rekening, ja?" unambiguously means that they are making sure that the entire bill will be for her.

'''Piet Woevre''' 
The Woëvre is a natural region of Lorraine in north-east France. It forms part of Lorraine plateau and lies largely in the department of Meuse. During World War I, there was much fighting there due to vast mineral resources that had been discovered in the Briey basin or Eastern Woevre at the end of the 19th century. "Piet" is Dutch for "rock" or "stone" and is a fairly common Dutch name, the English equivalent being Peter.

Piet doesn't have a meaning as a name in Dutch, it is just a fairly common name and denotes that he is from humble origin (whereas he superior de Decker may be from nobility).

Woevre is not a common name in Flandres. Interestingly the sound reminds one immidiately of Woeste, which is a better know name. Charles Woeste (1837-1922) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Woeste] was a conservative catholic politician in Belgium trying to stop the struggle of the liberation of the Flemish textile workers in Aalst by Priester Daens[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Daens] .

If the surname is pronounced as in Dutch, Woevre is another Pynchon villain with a "V"-name (Vond, Weissman, Vibe).

This is not correct, neither in Dutch nor in French (which would be the language spoken by the upper class in Belgium at that time) is the W pronounced as a V. So it is not a "V"-name.

'''Force Publique''' 
The Force Publique (FP) was the official armed force for what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1885, (when the territory was known as the Congo Free State), through the period of direct Belgian rule (1908-60), until the beginning of the Second Republic in 1965. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Publique Wikipedia entry]

'''made him reach''' 
Possible allusion to a famous line, "When I hear the word culture I reach for my gun." From Hanns Johst's biographical play ''Schlageter''. The original line is slightly different: "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning," "Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!" (Act 1, Scene 1). It is spoken by another character in conversation with the young Schlageter. In the scene Schlageter and his wartime comrade Friedrich Thiemann are studying for a college examination, but then start disputing whether it's worthwhile doing so when the nation is not free.

The line is often misattributed to better-known Nazis and others [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Johst].

*In Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film [http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/archives/0997/09057.html ''Le Mépris'' (''Contempt'')], Jack Palance's character "Jeremy Prokosch," an American movie-producer, intones to Fritz Lang: "Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my checkbook."

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That's_When_I_Reach_For_My_Revolver That's When I Reach for My Revolver] is a song written in the beginning of the 1980ies by Clint Conley of Mission of Burma. It has been covered many times, most prominently by Moby.

'''not unambiguous''' 
Ie, ambiguous.

'''''rastaquoueres''''' 
Social upstarts

'''de Decker''' 
In Dutch/Flemish, the name means "roofer." (''De'' in these names almost never means "of, from" as in French; it's nearly always the definite article.)

The small "d" in "de Decker" denotes that he is from the upper-class, likely nobility. Piet Woevre, on the contrary, is a much more common name.

==Page 541==

'''''bobbejaan''''' 
Afrikaans: baboon. (Afrikaans is the language spoken by descendants of Dutch colonists in present-day South Africa. Some items identified as Dutch or Flemish in this wiki may really be Afrikaans.)

The South African song "Bobbejaan klim die berg" ("Bobbejaan climbed the hill") is the source of the stage name of Belgium's most famous country and western musician, Bobbejaan Schoepen (b. 1925). In 1943 he was suppressed by the Nazis after performing a South African song, "Mamma, 'k wil 'n man hê" ("Mama, I want a man"), which contains the line "No, Mama, I don't want a German, because I don't like pork." He founded the Bobbejaanland theme park in Belgium, where he still lives.

'''MKIV/ODC... Mark Four''' 
This would be the Mark IV Ohmic Drift Compensator ([[ATD 557-587#Page 565|Page 565]]), a key component of the Q-weapon, which "regulates how much light is allowed to enter the silvering of the mirror! Special kind of refraction! Calibrated against imaginary index! Dangerous! Of the essence!'"

'''not part of your remit''' 
Not included in your job description, instructions, authorization. "Remit" (noun) is usually a British usage.

'''''gatkruiper''''' 
Dutch/Flemish: brownnose, ass-kisser.

'''one on her wrist''' 
All the bruises reflect some refinement or artistry except this one, which may have been inflicted crudely.

'''over the day''' 
Title motif?

==Page 542==

'''trans-horizontic''' 
Across the horizon " a screaming comes across the sky"

'''Edmund Whittaker''' 
Edmund Whittaker (1873-1956), an English mathematician. He is best known for his work in numerical analysis. And he contributed widely to applied mathematics, mathematical physics and the theory of special functions. He also worked on celestial mechanics and the history of applied mathermatics and physics. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._T._Whittaker Whittaker]).

The Sir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize is awarded every four years by the Edinburgh Mathematical Society to an outstanding young mathematician having a specified connection with Scotland [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Edmund_Whittaker_Memorial_Prize].

'''louche''' 
The cloudy effect caused by the addition of water to absinthe. Dictionary definition: "of questionable taste or morality; decadent."

'''"Now, with no sensible passage of time, the rooms were resonant with absence."''' 
Cf. [[ATD_397-428#Page_414|page 414]], where Chick Counterfly first encounters the Trespassers at Candlebrow U. ("as if positive expressions of silence and absence were being deployed against him").

'''cheval-glass''' 
Standing mirror in a freestanding vertical frame.

'''as if someone''' 
Sound-cancelling vs opacity-cancelling?

'''"dressing-gown...faceless, armless, attending him"''' 
Not saying this is a deliberate reference by TRP, but this section where Kit appears to see Pliéiade Lafrisée's dressing-gown standing by itself in the moonlight against the window reminds me strongly of a particular image from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prayer_for_Owen_Meany ''A Prayer for Owen Meany''] by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving John Irving]. Without going on forever here, if you know that book, you probably know the image I'm talking about, and it's uncannily similar to this section of ''AtD''...a faceless, armless mannequin holding a dress belonging to the narrator's mother, taken by Owen to be an angel of death. It's a central image in that novel that recurs in various ways.

Isn't there an apparition like this in one of the ghost stories of M.R. James? James (1862-1936) is the British author famous for, among other things, the story ("Casting of the Runes") which was turned into the 1957 horror film "Night of the Demon." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.R._James]

==Page 543==

'''wraith of Pleiade Lafrisee'''

Pleiade manifests one of her not-visible stars. Perhaps this sister has somehow twisted herself on an imaginary axis ala Dr. V. Ganesh Rao.

'''monitory''' 
Warning, giving advice, by extension ominous or menacing.

'''Against....the day....'''
Note: this phrase happens at the exact halfway point of the novel: p.542.3

'''He Who Must Come''' 
The evil-doer who must come might be Adolf Hitler. It would make sense. The implication being that Europe is precipitating into a no-return situation. Capitalism cannot but end in WW2. 
Ah, a lot more and less than capitalism going on here, especially if anyone specific like Hitler is meant.
:When French writers use this phrase (''celui qui doit venir'') they '''do''' mean the Messiah . . . although a few devout quibblers point out that the Messiah has already come. It's rather tiresome Googling the phrase; the first 83 hits definitely refer to Christ and most of them quote the first verses of Matthew 11. But there's also a Camus reference (in English, I think) down at No. 90, if anyone has a JSTOR account:
:links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0361-1299(1985)39%3A4%3C251%3ACFS%22M%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

Recalls Yeats' 'The Second Coming' once again: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2007/05/casino-royale-in-flanders-field.html#c3637134446204467798 ]

What this had *me* thinking of was the aria "Es gibt ein Reich" in the Richard Strauss/Hugo von Hofmannstal opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne_auf_Naxos]. When Ariadne sings this, in Act II, she has been abandoned by her lover and she awaits the arrival of the god Hermes, who will surely carry her off into The Land of the Dead. A portion of the von Hofmannstal text can be translated as "Soon a herald will come, / Hermes is his name [...] It is you who will save me, / My captive soul freed of this burden of being." Here's some good writing that places the aria in context. [http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1680.html ] The opera had its premiere in 1912, but Strauss and von Hofmannstal were *very* much a part of this period. And, of course, Strauss-iana does pop up around here.

'''General Boulanger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Boulanger Georges Boulanger], French military man, and War Minister in the late 19th century. He was one of those men "on a white horse" that some conservatives looked to, as he urged an attack on Germany and the end of the French Republic with a return to monarchy. He was also notorious for his harsh reprisals against workers' demonstrations. "'Boulangisme'" threatened a coup in 1889, but the general's procrastination brought the crisis to an end. 
In ''The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism''
by Matthew Carr, 2007, Boulanger is called the "father" of fascism.

'''what death and what transfiguration''' 
Allusion to Richard Strauss' tone poem "Death and Transfiguration" (''Tod und Verklärung''), premiered in 1890.

'''''"Zeker"''''' 
Dutch: certainly.

'''''dead cert''''' 
Dead certainty, sure thing.

'''Von Schlieffen''' 
Alfred von Schlieffen was the author of a German war plan to win a two-front war against both France and Russia by quickly defeating France before Russian troops could be mobilized. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan Schlieffen Plan] included an attack on France through Belgium, disregarding its neutrality.

'''Wilhelm has offered Leopold part of France, the ancient Duchy of Burgundy''' 
[http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr-bg.html History of the duchy.] [http://www.freiburg-madison.de/freiburg_history/1386-1517_The%20Early%20Habsburgs.htm Map,] with portrait of Duke Charles the Rash.

'''lowlands''' 
Title of Pynchon's first published story. Here, ass?

Actually the second published story, being "The Small Rain" the first in '59. And I think it means literally lowlands, as they are below sea level.

The Netherlands and Flandres are known as the Low Lands (Nether/Neder = under, below).

==Page 544==

'''Place d'Armes''' 
Main square of Ostend; literally "drill field".

'''peau de soie''' 
"Skin of silk" A heavy, smooth satin with very fine ribbing; somewhat dull in sheen compared with traditional silk finishes.

'''Krafft-Ebing''' 
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, Austro-German psychiatrist and author of ''Psychopathia Sexualis'' (1886), a pioneering study of deviant sexual behavior and fetishism. Coined both ''sadism'' and ''masochism'' as terms for these respective behaviors. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Freiherr_von_Krafft-Ebing Wikipedia entry].

'''toque''' 
Toque here refers to a lady's hat, originally of fur but here in velvet, which is rather like a flattened chef's hat in shape.

Proust: in ''À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs'' the narrator first sees Albertine wearing a toque. There seem to be quite a few Proust themes and references running throughout the novel. Indeed '''Pléiade''' is the French publisher of Proust's works.

'''guipure''' 
Lace trim.

'''midinette''' 
A shopgirl or dressmakers apprentice. A milliner.
These days, mostly used to describe a naive and sentimental young girl

'''Lambic''' 
A distinctive Belgian style of beer. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambic Wikipedia]

'''sous''' 

Coins. Originally Roman gold coins, latterly any kind of coin.

Also an old French currency

Specifically small change. She is affecting modesty by claiming that a hat like hers can be had for pennies in any unpretentious shop. In France "sou is used as slang for money, as in ''sans le sou''. 'I'm broke', 'without money'. It is also a slang term for the Canadian cent (standard French, cent)." ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sou Wikipedia])

'''mayonnaise''' 
Brautigan's "Trout Fishing in America" famously ends with the word mayonnaise. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0395500761&id=rbEjDovfyNMC&pg=RA2-PA111&lpg=RA2-PA111&ots=ELKl5b_6Tx&dq=mayonnaise+trout.fishing&num=100&sig=BiyXRqJXRGrMWbrBNgn8de2kpCo#PRA2-PA112,M1 GoogleBooks]

'''ovoöleaginous''' 
Another Pynchonic word combination, here denoting the two main ingredients of mayonnaise: 1) eggs, and 2) oil. It's not "fecoventilatory collision" as seen in "Vineland," but it's nice.

'''Grenache''' 
Grape commonly used in Rhone Valley wines e.g. Chateauneuf du Pape.

in this case, it refers to a deep, dark shade of red

'''Chantilly''' 

Region north of Paris.

Here the reference is to crème chantilly otherwise known as whipped cream. Chantilly mayonnaise is made by incorporating the beaten egg whites for extra lightness.

'''attainder''' 
Legislative act declaring that a person is guilty of a crime and setting punishment without the benefit of a formal trial. The Constitution forbids the federal government (Article I, Section 9, clause 3) and the state governments (Article I, Section 10, clause 1) from passing bills of attainder.
[www.historycentral.com/Civics/B.html]

''''''Aux armes, citoyens'''''' 
''To arms, citizens'', from the French national anthem, ''La Marseillaise'' (1792). Kit confused La Mayonnaise with La Marseillaise. 
I don't think he's confused - he suspects Pleiade and is making a point ironically. A James-Bondish sort of quip. In fact this whole incident is Bondish and Pleiade is a Bond-type seductress. And let's not forget, Kit is surrounded by Flemings...

Interesting foresight from Thomas Pynchon. The Belgian Federal Elections of June 10th 2007 led to very long and difficult coalition negotiations. Yves Leterme, the leader of the Flemish Christian Deomocratic Party CD&V was the big winner of the elections in Flandres with a very much pro-Flemish programme (some would say, an alomost separatist programme). Mr Leterme encountered enormous difficulty setting up a government and was not popular at all in the southern (French-speaking) part of Belgium. When asked on July 21st 2007 (the Belgian National Holiday) if he knew the Belgian National Hymn in French, he started singing the French National Hymn, The Marseillaise instead of the Belgian National Hymn, The Brabanconne, shocking a large part of the Belgian population. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABTR2Xe_sGw]

'''Louis XV''' 
King of France 1715-1774 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XV].

'''Cléo de Mérode''' 
Glamorous French ballerina (1875-1966), later Follies Bergere dancer and famous beauty. Her reputed intimacy with King Leopold was only a rumor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleo_de_Merode]. The character Madame Leonora Armfeldt in Stephen Sondheim's ''A Little Night Music'' has some features in common with her.

'''Marquise de Pompadour''' 
Mistress of Louis XV,once friend of Voltaire and a power behind official scenes.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_de_Pompadour].

'''Neuropathists would recognize in both kings a desire to construct a self-consistent world to live inside, which allows them to continue the great damage they are inflicting on the world the rest of us must live in.'''

Cf. Crime and Punishment

==Page 545==

'''duc de Richelieu''' 
Duc de Richelieu (1696-1788), marshal of France, was a grandnephew of Cardinal Richelieu, and born in Paris. Apart from his reputation as a man of exceptionally loose morals, he attained, in spite of a defective education, distinction as a diplomatist and general. ([http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Louis_Francois_Armand_du_Plessis,_duc_de_Richelieu duc de Richelieu] and cf [[ATD_489-524#Page 490|page 490:duc de Richelieu]])

'''dubious 'victory' in 1756''' 
As part of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), duc de Richelieu (1696-1788), a Marshal of France, won a victory in the Battle of Minorca (May 20, 1756) over John Byng (1704-1757), a British Admiral. In spring of 1756 John Byng was sent with a small and undermanned fleet to relieve the British ''Port Mahon'' on the Mediterranean island of Minorca. During the battle ensued, several British ships were badly damaged by the French squadron while others, including Byng's flagship, were still out of effective firing range. Instead of engaging the enemy directly, Byng decided to keep the formation, allowing the French fleet to get away undamaged. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Minorca Battle of Minorca]).

'''the ill-fated Admiral Byng''' 
John Byng, convicted by court-martial of failure "to do his utmost" in the battle, shot in 1757. Remembered because of (1) his being the last officer of flag rank to be put to death for conduct in battle and (2) Voltaire's gag in ''Candide:'' "In this country it is good to kill an admiral from time to time in order to encourage the others."

'''cantharides''' 
"Spanish fly," contact irritant sometimes ill-advisedly used as aphrodisiac.

'''Sadean''' 
Pertaining to the Marquis de Sade. The acts the chef performs on the egg and oil have the same names as acts of Sadean sex.

'''''n'est-ce pas?''''' 
Right? (Isn't that so?)

'''vetiver''' 
A grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) of tropical India, cultivated for its aromatic roots that yield an oil used in perfumery.
[www.answers.com/topic/vetiver]. So, a perfume with, llterallly, roots in India.

Vetiver makes frequent appearances throughout ''À la recherche du temps perdu.''

'''pip''' 
A beaut; in current parlance, a hottie.

'''Q.P. system''' 
Quaternion Probability, page 536.

'''Usine Régionale''' 
French: as translated in the text.

Actually, this is not proper French at all! Regional Mayonnaise Works should translate as "Usine Régionale de Mayonnaise" or, even better "Fabrique Régionale de Mayonnaise". "Usine ''à la'' mayonnaise" means mayo flavored factory, which makes no sense at all... or does it?

==Page 546==

'''disjunctive effects of thunderstorms''' 
Folk wisdom says a thunderstorm will cause mayonnaise to separate (oil from yolks).

'''cottonseed oil'''

Mayonnaisse like Smegmo and Crisco is a hydrogenated fat; cottonseed oil is a common factor to all three. Indeed, the name Crisco derives from the intial sounds of "'''crys'''tallized '''c'''ottonseed '''o'''il". Note in the next few pages a mention of Candlebrow -- underscoring a tie-in between Mayonnaisse and Smegmo.

It may be of interest to note that hydrogenation may have a symbolic use for Pynchon. The process entails bubbling hydrogen through oil in the presence of a metal catalyst such as nickel, platinum, aluminum at 248 to 410 degrees. Remnants of these metals stay in the finished product, and when consumed can lead to an increase in heavy metals in the human body.

Eating hydrogenated oils is like eating plastic. The body does not recognize that these molecules have been mutated and tries to use them as essential fatty acids. But they cannot perform the same function, and as a result hydrogenated oils can cause short circuits in the electrical flow that controls the heartbeat, nerve functions, cell division and mental balance. They also create free radicals (anarchists!) that are linked to cancers. Free radicals plus metal remnants are a major contributor to cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, osteoporosis, depression, chronic fatigue, Alzheimers, and neurological diseases. It is estimated that over 200 million people have died prematurely because of the hydrogenated oils found in our diets. [http://www.drz.org/asp/newsletter/default.asp?xt2id=23] Not to mention innocent bystanders killed by mentally imbalanced people whose imbalance may stem from the ingestion of hydrogenated oils -- there may be some underlying reality to the "Twinkie defense."

'''lounge suit''' 
A lounge suit is another name for business suit consisting of a matching jacket and trousers or skirt.

'''congress shoes''' 
ankle high shoes with elastic gussets in the sides (wordweb online)

'''invisible hand'''

Suggestive of Adam Smith's metaphor for market forces in economics.

'''dripping-heads''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayonnaise To make mayonnaise,] beat together egg yolks, salt, mustard and vinegar, then drip in oil while beating to form the emulsion. If you scale the process up for industrial production, you will automate the introduction of the oil, using nozzles that release it a drop at a time—but in a large vat you can have many such nozzles.

'''''cuves d'agitation''''' 
Vat or tank in which the mayonnaise is agitated or beaten.

'''Clinique d'Urgence pour Sauvetage des Sauces''' 
French: Emergency Clinic for Salvage of Sauces.

If I were to nitpick (which I always do when it comes to my mother tongue), I would point out that it should read Clinique d'Urgence pour '''le''' Sauvetage des Sauces (i.e.: Emergency Clinic for '''the''' Salvage of Sauces).

Pynchon is having fun here. The simple way to "save" a mayonnaise is to add a spoonful of water.

'''Mayonnaise!''' 
This scene reminds one of the famous scene in the Tricatel factory in the French movie "l'Aile ou la cuisse" with Louis de Funes and Coluche. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074103/]. Charles Duchemin (Louis de Funes) is a famous restaurant critic in a struggle with the industrial food producer Jacques Tricatel (Julien Guiomar). During the movie Charles Duchemin ends with his son Gerard (Coluche) in the Tricatel factory to discover how this food is being made. The factory has no visible workers, but Tricatel discovers them and tries to get them killed. The end up in giant pastries, tanks of thick sauses etc.

==Page 547==

'''' ...engulfed in thick, slick, sour-smelling mayonnaise. ''''
The whole Kit's experience in the mayonnaise factory is very much reminiscent to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl Roald Dahl]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Chocolate_Factory Charlie and the Chocolate Factory].

'''''Cazzo, cretino''''' 
Literally, "Dick, cretin." ''Cazzo'' is a common Italian interjectionary obscenity, especially in the south. "Cazzo, cretino," is akin to someone saying, "Well shit, dummy," or "F-ing moron!"

'''''È il cowboy!''''' 
Italian: It's the cowboy!

'''''vero?''''' 
true? real?

'''''Le bambole anarchiste, porca miseria''''' 
Italian: Anarchist babes, oh boy.

'''Oudenberg''' 
A southeast suburb of Ostende.

'''Quai de l'Entrepôt''' 
Warehouse Quay

'''''ragazzi''''' 
Italian: boys, guys.

==Page 548==

'''General Boulanger''' 
That the General was 'reactionary' and that the C of C bureaucracy had a 'defiant residue' of Boulangism, continues the characterization of the organization for which the Chums 'work'. 
See p. 543 above, regarding a 2007 book in which Boulanger is called the 'father of fascism'.

'''''timbres fictifs''''' 
French: fictive postage stamps. Cf "Lot 49". 
Yes, stamps mean something in Pynchon's works; here, it seems important that these stamps are characterized as frauds.

'''"IIIb"''' 
As explained in the text. 
"Section IIIB (Intelligence) of the German High Command. After WWI, was funded by Alfred Hugenberg (financial backer of Nazi party)". From ''Sabotage'' by Sayers & Kahn, 1942.[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22IIIB%27+%2B+INTELLIGENCE&btnG=Search]. The authors state in the Forward, in 1942, "that 'Nazi Germany' is the creation of spies and saboteurs". See ''V.'' & ''Gravity's Rainbow'', of course.

'''Germany might stand a better chance...''' 
That is, if the French were to push into Alsace (per Boulanger) as the Germans executed the Schlieffen Plan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_plan] for the encirclement of Paris, it would put the French at an even greater disadvantage...as actually happened in 1914. Had the Belgians and British not delayed the Germans in Flanders, and had the French railroads not performed speedily to bring the French troops back to the Marne, World War I could have had a very different outcome...an alternate history.

'''revanchist''' 
Policies based on revenge, or a person following such policies. In General Boulanger's case, revenge against Germany for the Franco-Prussian War (that is, retaking Alsace, lost in 1871).

'''the somewhat discomposed General''' 
Having died in 1891, the General by the time of the action is certainly somewhat '''de'''composed; brief biographies do not suggest he was ''non compos mentis,'' that is, mentally discomposed.

==Page 549==
'''grow more and more invisible''' 
What could be meant? Clearly, they inhabit bodies that people interact with?, as well as being characters in works of fiction. 
Given what happens with the Chums as the story progresses [Spoiler bit, thematically], I suggest that their invisibility here
means the entering of simple human life, to live out their lives 'anonymously' in history. I want to suggest this is largely a positive vision, indicated in other ways and places as well in TRPs work. Here is an overt bit of circumstantial evidence from Pynchon's introduction to Jim Dodge's novel ''Stone Junction'': 
"Equally difficult for those who might wish to proceed through life
anonymously and without trace has been the continuing assault against
the once-reliable refuge of the cash or non-plastic economy." [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html]

'''cackled Darby''' 
(When did he lose his innocence?)

'''a modification of any salsician metaphor toward the diminutive''' 
Salsician: pertaining to sausage. Lindsay says Suckling's penis is better compared to a wiener than a knockwurst.

'''"Why you little–and I do mean 'little'–"''' 
Another Simpsons reference?

Noseworth, the Master-At-Arms of the Chums division of this organization with a defiant residue of 'fascism', who had no smell to Pugnax early on,
is called out, either for real or in a sex-bashing putdown, for homosexuality. cf. homosexuality as a metaphor in ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

'''dunes between Nieuport and Dunkirk''' 
Nieuport is a Belgian seaport about 10 miles southwest of Ostend. Dunkirk is a French port (less than 10 miles inside the French border) about 20 miles southwest of Nieuport. The latter was a site of one of the bloodest battle in World War I. The general area between Niewport and Dunkirk was the well traversed battle fields of two world wars. (Dunkirk was (in)famous for the British Army's escape from the Nazi German's assault in World War II.)

'''power-receivers''' 
Not information, energy.

==Page 550==

'''Lot's wife''' 
Angels of God led Lot and his family out of Sodom as it was being destroyed and told them not to look back at the mayhem. Lot's wife, Edith, imprudently looked back and was transfigured into a pillar of salt.

'''preference...for interiors''' 
In [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_35:_349-361 Mason & Dixon, p. 354]
, the interiors of some coaches were larger than their exterior dimensions. Interiors have importance in Pynchon's worldview. Cf. "invisibility", and a 'human life' above. 

'''Italian grotto''' 
an imitating recess or structure made to resemble a natural Italian grotto.

'''a highly developed taste, moreover, for human blood''' 
Since Pugnax developed this taste in the Carpathians, home of Castle Dracula, this seems a clear reference to Bram Stoker's novel.

'''Carpathians''' 
Major mountain range running northwest-southeast through Poland, Slovakia, western Ukraine and Romania.

'''Uhlans''' 
Uhlan regiments belonged to the light cavalry. They wore splendid uniforms (model for some U.S. marching band uniforms). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhlan Wikipedia article.]

'''Temesvár''' 
Now Timişoara, extreme western Romania.

==Page 551==
'''prefiguration...of the holy City''' 
City of God, ala Augustine? ''The Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophers''[http://www.amazon.com/Heavenly-City-Eighteenth-Century-Philosophers/dp/0300101503]
, as explored in the book Ian McEwan says he lent Pynchon? [citation needed] 

'''...separated by only a slice of Time...''' 
Miles is beginning to experience Time almost as a spatial dimension, his personal vector as traversing (!) 4-dimensional space, or perhaps multidimensional space, the mathematics for which is being debated in Ostend.

'''securing the mess decks''' 
The Chums follow U.S. Navy idiom in orders (frequently prefixed with "Now") and shipboard activities ("secure" meaning "whatever you did before, undo it now," in this case put away the dishes and fold up the tables).

'''Ryder Thorn''' 
Tolkienesque name? Or perhaps it's a nod to the Ryder-Waite Tarot deck and to Kevin Thorn (Kevin Matthew Fertig, 1977-), the American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Kevin Thorn who is currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment wrestling on its ECW brand. He has appeared in vigniettes with Ariel (Shelly Martinez, 1980-), the tarot card reader, who spits blood at the camera while she "predicted the future of ECW." Yup, a stretch...

*The name also evokes the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

'''He was at Candlebrow.''' 
Presumably a 'trespasser.'

'''the four-note chord in the context of timelessness''' 
A melody is formed by notes following one another in time; a chord on the ukulele violates that practice by having all the notes sound at once. A really clever little passage.
Note: Jazz musicians describe musical improvisations as horizontal (with the melody) or vertical (with the chord)

==Page 552==

'''knuckle-duster''' 
Brass knuckles.

'''Diksmuide''' 
20 kilometers south of Ostend (about halfway to Ypres).

==Page 553==

'''The terrain was flat...lowlands''' 
Not, this time, a reference to Pynchon's ''Lowlands'', but to the two-dimensionality of Flanders, as in Edwin A. Abbott's ''Flatland'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland]; most humans, like the inhabitants of Flanders and Abbott's Flatlanders, experience life in two dimensions.

'''Somewhere up in the sky was Miles' home...''' 
Whereas Miles and the Chums of Chance, in contrast, live in three dimensions. The mathematicians gathered in Ostend are trying to calculate how to experience and use vectors to live in four dimensions; in a way, to experience Time as a kind of spatial dimension. Miles, on P. 551, is demonstrating the beginnings of an intuitive discovery of how to experience Time as an almost spatial dimension. Which would be a sort of "time travel", or at least an expanded view of life and history.

'''retted''' 
soaked in water or exposed to moisture (as flax or hemp) to facilitate the removal of the fiber from the woody tissue by partial rotting.

==Page 554==

'''Ypres and Menin''' 
Municipalities in West Flanders that were sites of some of the bloodiest battles of WWI. At the beginning of the war, the British and Belgian stand helped save Paris from encirclement by the Germans, and saved the Channel ports, but as Thorn points out, the area became the western anchor of the Western Front trench system. The several Battles of Ypres saw the first uses of poison gas (Mustard Gas, dichlorodiethylsulfide, was first called Yperite), the use of enormous mines, and the legendary mud of Passchendaele [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passchendaele].

'''Ten years from now''' 
(1914?) through 1918? and beyond?. Another paramorphic mirror--what do we now face. Whatever it is, it is nuclear.

'''Bosch''' 
Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516), Dutch painter of nightmares. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch Wikipedia entry].

'''Brueghel''' 
Pieter Brueghel the Elder(1525-1569), Flemish painter.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Brueghel_the_Elder Wikipedia entry].

'''League''' 
League of Nations? The League of Nations was formed after WWI to prevent future wars. Didn't succeed.

No. In this case a historical unit of length, approximately three miles -

No, again; a league here is an association of people joined by common interests and "League on league" means tremendous masses of people.

'''where the needles went and which way to rotate them''' 
I.e., how to push Thorn's buttons; the image is from acupuncture.

==Page 555==

'''simpletons at the fair''' 
Making Pynchon's metaphor explicit.

'''Chopin E-minor Nocturne''' 
Frédéric Chopin (1810-49), a Polish pianist and composer ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin Chopin]). He was born in Warsaw, Poland to a Polish morther and a French father. He went to Paris at the age of 20 and died there at the age of 39. He was widely regarded as one of the most famous and influential composers for the piano. From 1837-47 he had a 10-year stormy relationship with the French writer George Sand. His E-minor Nocturne is a 4-minute long Romantic style piano solo composed in 1827. (A ''nocturne'' is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturne Nocturne].)

'''owl-light''' 
???glimmering or imperfect light or twilight hours.

''''plasmic hysteresis'''' 

A coined term, apparently similar in meaning to Miles’ phrase “failure of physical translation.” Plasma would take an older meaning of “form” or “shape." Hysteresis, according to Webster's, refers to “a retardation in effect when the forces on an object are changed.” Hysteresis is used to describe magnetic phenomenon as well as plastic or elastic materials, that involve changes to a rest state that last beyond the forces that cause them. Examples include recordings on magnetic tape or a thumbprint slowly disappearing from putty. In the context of this passage, plasmic hysteresis appears to describe the lingering visage of someone who is no longer present – a hysteresis of form only and thus a failed physical translation. See [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=plasma&searchmode=none etymology of plasma] and this nifty explanation of [http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/sethna/hysteresis/WhatIsHysteresis.html hysteresis].

Hysteresis has also been used to refer to “loops” in time, certainly apropos in this case. I stumbled across an excellent example in a 1980 episode of Dr. Who, in which the eponymous Dr. is trapped in “chronic hysteresis,” an endless loop or return to a previous
point in time – very similar to the situation of Ryder Thorn. [http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_5q.htm Check it out for yourself!]

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 864-891

2008-11-06T17:35:07Z

Lemperute: /* Page 868 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 864==

'''''galleggianti''''' 
Boathouses.

'''''traghetto''''' 
ferry-boat.

==Page 865==

'''cicerone''' 
Guide, especially for a single woman.

'''''Inglesi''''' 
Italian: Englishmen.

==Page 866==

'''Gorblimey''' 
Representing a Cockney pronunciation of "God blind me!"; in medieval times, people would curse using contractions rather than breaking the third commandment (Do not use the Lord's name in vain oaths). Compare strewth, zounds, 'sblood. -- Wiktionary

'''Jenny Invert''' 
This is not her first occurrence. Part of the printing of 1918 24-cent airmail stamps showed an inverted image of a Curtis JN-4 Jenny airplane. [http://www.afa.org/magazine/1990/0790jenny.asp It's a famous and valuable stamp.] 
Another female character named after a stamp is "Penny Black"

'''Newmarket''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: Newmarket]].

'''Nether Wallop, Hants''' 
Hants: customary shortening of Hampshire. 
NETHER WALLOP, a parish in the hundred of Thorngate, county Hants, 7 miles S.W. of Andover, and 3½ N.W. of Stockbridge, its post town. The parish is situated under Danebury Hill, on which are remains of a fortification with ramparts, strengthened on the western side by an outwork, and supposed to have been formed by Canute the Great. The surface is hilly and the soil chalky. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Winchester, value £350. The church, dedicated to St. Andrew, contains several old monuments and two brasses-one of an abbess, bearing date 1432, and the other of a mitred abbot. Gazeteer of Ireland and Great Britain. 
Great Pynchonian name.

'''Inanimate Bird Association''' 
Concerned with clay pigeons, i.e., trapshooting.

'''rather shirty''' 

Shirty: angry, irritated, huffy, stroppy.
Maybe from "Keep your shirt on!" (Don't get angry!)

'''the key also changes day to day''' 
A code depending upon changes in the starting point for shifts in the text (e.g a book with a different starting page depending on the date, groups of letters that change starting with a different letter every day)is considered unbreakable unless one knows the starting point, called the Key.

'''''Oca ti jebem''''' 
Macedonian: I fuck your father.

'''Giles Piprake''' 
Is he aping Chico Marx? 
A small rake with women? See his remark about Ratty's wife. The joke here is that if Ratty's wife did complain, that would be a problem Piprake couldn't sort out. 
No, G.P.'s comeback is a joke in the "That's what ''she'' said" genre. 
Lots of definitions for [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pip pip], take your pick. Breaking through a shell (shell being a metaphor for a problem barrier in this case) seems as appropriate as any. Lots of definitions for [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rake rake], too. 
A ''pipkrake'' is a narrow spike of ice that grows upward from a body of groundwater in freezing weather, carrying a portion of soil on its top surface. [http://epod.usra.edu/archive/epodviewer.php3?oid=336192 Here] are a photo and discussion; note that the caption has the misspelling ''piprake''!

==Page 867==

'''remember not to wear yellow''' 
Cyprian thinks he was seen hiding because he was wearing yellow?
Conjecture: Austro-Hungary's colors were yellow and black. So yellow not only draws the eye, but he might also be taken for an Austrian in Venice incurring Italian mob wrath or perhaps Theign's attention.

'''''valletto''''' 
Italian: valet, attendant.

'''''heliotrope''''' 
A moderate, light, or brilliant violet to moderate or deep reddish purple.

'''''Facciam' il porco''''' 
We (the Prince and valletto) are playing the sexual pervert. Literally, we are doing the pig, but porco is Italian slang for sexual pervert.

'''''Il mio ragazzo è molto geloso''''' 
Italian: My little guy is very jealous.

'''''Qualsiasi, Ciprianino''''' 
Italian: Whatever you want (you want is implied), little Cyprian.

'''The Iron Gateway''' 
an imaginary internal 'Symbolist' artwork embodying vivid hallucinatory visions within ATD? 
Also a real structure:
Iron Gateway & Draghut Mosque, Tripoli Medina
Iron Gateway, Tripoli Medina
Iron Gateway & Draghut Mosque, Tripoli Medina

-- Is this a reference to the Portal, p.154?

'''Carlo Zen furniture''' 
Designed by Carlo Zen (Italian, 1851-1918)
Among the more prolific designers and cabinet-makers of the period was the firm of Carlo Zen. Some of his decorations suggest the strong influence of continental symbolism, while other objects reveal a keen awareness of geometric simplification.

'''Galileo Chini''' 
Galileo CHINI , famous italian painter and ceramist, was born in Florence on December 2nd 1873 and died on August 23rd 1956.
In 1896, he funded "The Art of Ceramics" (later called "Factory Fornaci S.Lorenzo). He introduced the Liberty style in Italy.
As a painter he took part at the"Biennale di Venezia" from 1901 till 1936.
In 1911 he was in Bangkok to decorate Siam King's palace.
He remained there till 1913: it was a triumph! Back in Italy, he taught at the "Accademia di Belle Arti"in Florence. Some of his beautiful works of Art can be found at the Modern Art Gallery in Rome, at the Uffizi in Florence and at the Modern Art Gallery in Palazzo Pitti.

'''Bugatti''' 
Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940), world-famous furniture designer from Milan.

==Page 868==

'''''corno''''' 
The "horned" cap worn by Doges of Venice. An example comes from a Bellini portrait of a doge at [http://www.prints.co.nz/page/fine-art/PROD/Renaissance_Art_Prints/7211].

'''''lo stato''''' 
Italian: the state.

'''penance....imbalance in Nature.''' 
incredible thematic paragraph that relates to revenge motif?

- seems also to refer to the idea of Karma and karmic penance. Only if you make up for the deeds done in this or in an earlier life, the karmic account will be balanced (i.e. 'Nature' in the sense of the whole cosmos).

I see also a clear reference to the idea of control in modern society put forward by French philosopher Michael Foucault, who explains in his book ''Surveiller et punir'' (Discipline and Punish) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish] how governments (power) try to subtly control us in order to make us become 'proper citizens' and how those who dare to be out of such properness must and should be punished.

==Page 869==

'''''salizzada''''' 
Salizzada once meant a paved street, implying that all other, less important calles were once just dirt-packed alleyways.From a Venice Guidebook.

==Page 870==

'''Not by a long chalk''' 
This mainly British expression means “not by any means”, “not at all” and often turns up in conventional expressions such as they weren’t beaten yet, not by a long chalk.
It goes back to the days in which a count or score of almost any kind was marked up on a convenient surface using chalk. At a pub or ale house this might be a note of the amount of credit you had been given (often called the chalk in the early nineteenth century), which Charles Dickens refers to in Great Expectations: “There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk scores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to be never paid off.”-- Yahoo answers.

'''gibanica''' 
Croatian: a rolled pastry filled with cheese or fruit.

'''kadulja''' 
Croatian, literally: garden sage.

'''coastal Čakavština''' 
Speech of a region in coastal Croatia.

==Page 871==

'''''bàcari''''' 
Venetian wine bars

'''formulæ''' 
Spells. The plural of formula, an established form of words or symbols for use in a ceremony or procedure.

==Page 872==

'''''Altezza''''' 
Italian: Highness.

==Page 873==

'''Montepulciano''' 
A red wine, considered among Italy's best, from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montepulciano Montepulciano].

'''the Ponte degli Scalzi''' 
Cf [[ATD_724-747#Page_746|page 746: the Ponte degli Scalzi]].

==Page 874==

'''11 mm Montenegrin Gasser''' 
A hinged-framed 11.3 mm calibre revolver

'''... to leave some mark of imbalance''' 
Refer back to p.868: "... there is an imbalance in Nature."

'''San Stae''' 
In Santa Croce district.

==Page 875==

==Page 876==

'''gentleman ops''' 
A tradition in thrillers. Bulldog Drummond and Tommy Hambledon are just two in the crowd.

'''dittoes''' 
"A suit of dittoes" is an outfit of coat, vest (waistcoat) and trousers from the same fabric.

'''Wrong sod, I'm afraid''' 
Not Oscar Wilde, i.e. not a Dandy

'''religious surrender of the self''' 
See P. 836, and note. Suggests Cyprian's masochism is a form of self-transcendence; transgression as transcendence. He has indeed demonstrated his ability to lose all desire...

==Page 877==

'''...what were the chances of finding anyone seeking to transcend that, and not even particularly aware of it?''' 
Passing beyond the self, passing beyond desire (and without fanfare), Cyprtian's very Buddhist quest, is perceived only as masochistic in the Western materialist view.

==Page 878==

'''''brisance''''' 
A French word now fully adopted in English. In the context of explosives it means "shattering power." In English it means the shattering or crushing effect of a sudden release of energy as in an explosion.

'''undissembled''' 
Synonyms: open-hearted, honest, plain, artless, guileless, ingenuous, innocent, natural, sincere, transparent, unconcealed, undisguised, unvarnished. Antonyms: devious, secretive, two-faced, evasive.

'''Wigan''' 
A town near Manchester, England, (with a professional soccer team, Wigan Athletic).<

'''the Earl's Court Wheel''' 
[http://www.shadyoldlady.com/location.php?loc=492 The Great Wheel] of a height of 300 ft built at the Earls Court exhibition grounds, London. It was modelled on the original one in Chicago. It was opend on July 6, 1895 for the "Empire of India Exhibition" and stayed in service until 1906. It was dismantled in 1907.

'''reversals of power''' 
Reversals of sexual power positions parallel Alernating Current. If DC is "direct" i.e. in one direction only, and AC is "alternating" current, a current of periodical reversals, perhaps all this talk of transcending sexual norms and role reversals is a social/sexual counterpoint to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents Current Wars]fought between Edison and Tesla. After much heated contention, Tesla and AC won, enormously extending the range and safety of power distribution (electrical, economic, sexual, social) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering].Seen in the light of electrical circuitry, Anarchist explosions are expressions of power imbalance, every detonation another circuit blown. 
Electrical engineering terms take on new significance in AtD: twisted pair, induction coupling, Q inductors, three-phase generation, loads, triangle wave, square wave, etc. Interestingly, the wiki commentary on the War of the Currents states that "AC cannot really be understood or exploited without a substantial mathematical and mathematical physics orientation, which Tesla had" -- as did Yashmeen -- at whose feet these power reversals were but the "outskirts" (an interesting double entendre in outskirts). That Yashmeen is central to all this sexual power transformation, generation, distribution, alternating style as well as being a human mental radio (clairvoyance) -- she becomes an embodiment of both Henry Adams' dynamo and Virgin -- in one! A duality in singularity. She is the mother/whore of the electrical world.

==Page 879==

'''the least ''clairvoyante''''' 
The (woman) friend least able to exercise occult powers such as seeing the future.

'''Carnevale''' 
Italian: Carnival. The Italian word [http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/blr0149.htm ''Carnevale''] derives from ''Carne Levare'' — Remove Meat — the name of the sumptuous dinner people would hold the night before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. In the past, things were especially intense in Venice, where debauched revels went on for weeks.
The standard folk etymology says that Carnevale means 'Farewell to meat" (vale is Latin for goodbye). See below, Carnesalve.

==Page 880==

'''Carnesalve''' 
If Carnevale means "goodbye to meat" (beginning of the Lenten fast), Carnesalve means "hello there, meat!"

'''San Servolo''' 
Island in the Venetian Lagoon, to the southeast of San Giorgio Maggiore, from 18th century until 1978 site of the Venetian psychiatric hospital. Since 1978, site of the "Istituto per le Ricerche e gli Studi sull´Emarginazione Sociale e Culturale" (Institute for the Study of Social and Cultural Marginalization) to preserve the documents associated with the history of the psychiatric hostpital [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo].

'''Signori di Notte''' 
Italian: night lords.

==Page 881==

'''...framed by Signor Fabrizio's re-imagining of Yashmeen's hair...''' 
Saved from when he cut it off? On P. 860, she says he may "do whatever he want(s) with it.

'''Parma violets''' 
A delicate variety of the flower produced in the Italian city. The blossoms are sometimes sold candied, too.

'''loggie''' 
Plural of ''loggia.'' Italian: theater box or similar feature in a formal room.

==Page 882==

'''''amoretti''''' 
Italian: "Cupids" used as space fillers or decorative elements.

'''''tesoro''''' 
Italian: treasure.

'''Quickly now ....''' 
The conception described here is technically immaculate: Reef fulfills the role of the Father, Yashmeen that of Mary, and Cyprian that of the Holy Ghost. 

Or is this a human instance of three phase electrical generation? 
Or an alchemical operation to produce the Philosopher's Stone? 
Or the creation of a Moonchild through sex magic ala Aleister Crowley.

Alchemical musings: Person-Sex-Orb-Metal 
Reef: male, sun, gold 
Yashmeen: female, moon, silver 
Cyprian: female/male, mercury, mercury (quicksilver)

Cyprian first receives the seed as the functional equivalent of a female and then plants the seed as a male. He changes gender relating to his passing through the arch alone -- this also seems metaphorically related to the process of photographic plate development shift in colors. 

This sex shift also relates him to Mercury, quicksilver, a transition metal named for a hermaphroditic god. The glyph for Mercury is used in biology and botany to mean double-sexed.

Mercury was once used in the amalgamation process of refining gold and silver ores. It was central to the practice of the assayer in juding the purity of gold and silver ore, and the alchemist in the the production of the Philosopher's Stone. Mercury signifies the ''coniunctio'' or uniting of opposites.

'''''fellatrice''''' 
Or: fellatrix , a female who performs oral-genital-sex on the penis. Quote: Woody Allen to Miro Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite (1995): ' I'm sure that you're a state-of-the-art fellatrix .' The etymology of fellatrice and fellatrix is the same as that of fellatio: from Latin, fellare (to suck). These words are used in English, French and Italian.
(denoting Cyprian's role, not his physiology).
 ''in fact, the word is not used in italian at all.''

==Page 883==

'''Ascension Day''' 
The fortieth day after Easter Sunday (which is always a Thursday), commemorating the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension Ascension] of Christ into heaven, according to Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and Acts 1:2.

==Page 884==

==Page 885==

'''outmoded sexual protocols''' 
Again, transgression = transcendence. Of course, also parallels struggl;es over acceptance of homosexuality in our times.

'''nasal intrusion''' 
Sticking one's nose into something.

'''''chavalitos''''' 
Spanish: kids.

==Page 886==

'''Grand Army of the Matrimonial Republic''' 
The Grand Army of the Republic comprised Union veterans of the American Civil War. Its heyday came around 1890-1910.

==Page 887==

'''endlessless''' 
A typo for endlessness.

==Page 887-888==
'''[T]he dream came and found him...''' 
Reef's contribution to the hallucination/dream motif previously referenced in the Traverse sections of the novel. The color yellow seems to be significant here and elsewhere, especially coded to Webb Traverse. [More forthcoming]

<blockquote>
          In the dream they were no longer in the ghostly canyons of the McElmo but in the city, not Venice but noplace American either, with an umappable operational endlessless (sic) to its streets, the same ancient, disquieting pictures engraved on its walls as back in the McElmo, spelling out a story whose pitiless truth couldn't be admitted officially by the authorities here because of the danger to the public sanity.... It was darker out here than he had any idea of. In the distance Reef caught sight of a procession of miners in their long rubber coats, only one of them, about halfway along, with the candle stub in his hat lit. Like postulants in habits, they proceeded single file down a narrow street like a humid drift lit back or front by a yellow lamp. As Reef came closer he saw the bearer of the light was Webb. 
        "Small victories," Webb greeted him. "Just to come away with one or two. To praise and to honor the small victories where and however they happen." 
        "Hasn't been too many of them lately, Pa," Reef tried to say. 
        "Not talking about yours, you numbskull." 
        Understanding that this was Webb's attempt to pass on another message, like up the séance in the Alps, Reef saw just for one lucid instant that this was the precise intelligence he needed to get him back to where he had wandered off the trail, so long ago. And then he was awake and trying to remember why it was important.</blockquote>

[[User:Bean|remy]] 13:15, 28 December 2006 (PST)

endlessless: typo for endlessness

pictures engraved on the walls: the Puebloan pictograms

'''Garfagnana''' 
Historical region of Italy, today part of the province of Lucca in the Apennines, in northwest Tuscany, but before the unification of Italy it belonged to the Duchy of Modena and Reggio, ruled by the Este family. For a short time, in the 16th century, it was governed by the poet Ludovico Ariosto [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfagnana].

'''Bagni di Lucca''' 
Note the similarity in name to Banjaluka (or Banja Luka), Bosnia or actually Republika Srpska , mentioned on page 834. Another bilocation, like Kara Tagh and Montenegro ([[ATD_748-767#Page_764|annotations, page 764]]).

Might also add: Novi Pazar = Novi Bazar = Newmarket.

Also Agadir and Cádiz, both coming from the Phoenician gadir, meaning '"castle", "fortress"..."walled stronghold" or simply "wall"'.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1diz]

'''homeopathic principle''' 
Like cures like. To alleviate an allergy, according to homeopathic doctrine, administer the allergen in an exceedingly dilute form.

==Page 889==

'''Say surly topple''' 
You can't help thinking Reef does this on purpose (or Pynchon :-). French ''C'est sur la table'': It's on the table.
Maybe he ran into James Joyce on his travels. These are all very 'Finnegans Wake' type puns.

'''pasta asciutta''' 
Pasta dish with potatoes and green beans. Actually ''pasta asciutta'' refers to any kind of ''pasta''. Actually, pasta asciutta refers to any kind of packaged dry (asciutta translates as dry) pasta (as opposed to made from [http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1635,144190-254199,00.html scratch]) and apparently when Reef boiled it, it "was always overdone." There are also lots of regional recipes with pasta asciutta as part of the name of the recipe, e. g., pasta asciutta alla bolognese, or pasta asciutta alla siciliana.

'''pasta fazool''' 
Officially ''pasta e fagioli;'' "fazool" imitates the pronunciation in a regional dialect of Italian. A hearty soup consisting of pasta, any one of a variety of beans (borlotti (cranberry) beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, ...), and optionally some meat.

==Page 890==

'''''al dente''''' 
Italian, cooked so as to be firm when eaten; literally: to the tooth or to the bite, referring to the need to chew the pasta due to its firmness.

'''Barcelona''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Week Tragic Week] (in Catalan la Setmana Tràgica, in Spanish la Semana Trágica) (July 25-August 2, 1909) is the name used for a series of bloody confrontations between the army and the working classes of Barcelona and other cities of Catalonia, backed by the anarchists, communists and republicans, during the last week of July 1909. It was caused by the calling-up of reserve troops by Prime Minister Antonio Maura to be sent as reinforcements when Spain renewed military-colonial activity in Morocco on July 9. There would be risings again in 1917, and Barcelona was among the last strongholds of the Spanish Republic in the Civil War of 1936-39; even during the Civil war, anarchists and Communists fought in the streets (see Orwell's ''Homage to Catalonia'' for a participant account. In 1972 anarchist grafiti could still be found in the Old City). But in 1909, indeed, much worse was to come.

'''''línea del fuego''''' 
Spanish: line of (the) fire. This may be a naive translation of "firing line" or "line of fire" (note the satisfying ambiguity); ''línea de tiro'' seems to be preferred.

'''...''absence of desire''--why one might choose ''not to embrace'' what the world judges, it often seemed unanimously, to lie clearly in one's interest.''' 
Cyprian is becoming aware of his interest in divesting himself of desire. Yashmeen in the following sentences notes this change that took place in him in Bosnia; he notes how difficult renouncing his desire for her will be, and she that this is not the real meaning.

==Page 891==

'''Biarritz''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biarritz Biarritz], located about 11 miles from the border with Spain, is a town by the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in southwestern France.

'''''bal musette''''' 
French: dance hall (bal), with the music provided by an accordion band. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal-musette Bal-musette] is a style of French popular music presumably played at these dance halls.

'''in some auxiliary sense . . . his own''' 
Review details of the encounter at Carnesalve (page 881).

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}