Difference between revisions of "ATD 864-891"

Revision as of 22:00, 14 March 2007

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

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. It's a famous and valuable stamp.

Newmarket
Cf page 495: Newmarket.

Nether Wallop, Hants
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.

Page 867

remember not to wear yellow
Cyprian thinks he was seen hiding because he was wearing yellow?

valletto
Italian: valet, attendant.

Facciam' il porco
Let's do the pig! (maybe TRP was meaning let's get horny)

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

Qualsiasi, Ciprianino
Italian: Whatever, 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

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.

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).

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
???

formulæ
Spells.

Page 872

Altezza
Italian: Highness.

Page 873

Montepulciano
A red wine, considered among Italy's best, from Montepulciano.

the Ponte degli Scalzi
Cf page 746: the Ponte degli Scalzi.

Page 874

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."

Page 879

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

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 [1]. Significant comment on this Ball.

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.

fellatrice
Italian: fellatrix (denoting Cyprian's role, not his physiology).

Page 883

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

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]

          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.

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 [2].

Bagni di Lucca
Note the similarity in name to Banjaluka (or Banja Luka), Croatia, mentioned on page 834. Another bilocation, like Kara Tagh and Montenegro (annotations, page 764).

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

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. French C'est sur la table: It's on the table.

pasta asciutta
Pasta dish with potatoes and green beans. Actually pasta asciutta refers to any kind of pasta

pasta fazool
Officially pasta e fagioli; "fazool" imitates the pronunciation in a regional dialect of Italian. Pasta with cannellini beans.

Page 890

Barcelona
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 [3]. 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.

al dente
Italian, literally: resisting the tooth. Fully cooked but not yet rendered gluey.

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

bal musette
French: dance hall.

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

Annotation Index