Difference between revisions of "ATD 525-556"

Latest revision as of 23:06, 10 June 2021

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

Page 525

Ostend
Cf 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 page 130:Quaternions. Quaternions are a non-commutative extension of complex numbers (Hamilton, 1843).

Analogy with the complex numbers (Cf page 132:complex number) being represented as a sum of real and imaginary parts, a + bi, where i² = −1, a quaternion is defined as a combination a + bi + cj + dk, where i² = j² = k² = 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 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).

According to Wikipedia, in Belgium, a demi of beer means a half-liter glass of beer.

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, 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.) 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 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 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 = ai + bj + ck, 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 page 326:Curl and p. 536, Laplacian — Cf 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. (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. This is likely a reference to mathematician Alexander McAuley, who researched biquaternion theory, and was Professor of Physics at the University of Tasmania, Hobart ([1]).

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 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. (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. Corrected to "Belgian nihilists" in the paperback.

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 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! However it is more likely that the revolutionaries had taken on new handles, more appropriate to their cause.

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. 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 Young Turks, a Turkish revolutionary movement

Garde Civique
A part of the Belgian army. According to the 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. [2]

"...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 (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. (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. [Reclus).

Stirnerite
Follower of Max Stirner, 19th century German philosopher and author of The Ego and Its Own, a work influential in anarchist thought. Wikipedia entry. Discussion...

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

Leopold
See 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." (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. (Hippodrome).

Royal Bathing Hut... twenty francs
A 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, 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 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. [Whitehead].

Fiume is now Rijeka, Croatia. Trieste is on the northwestern edge of the Istra Peninsula, Rijeka is east of it. [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 Wikipedia entry on royal yachts goes back to the 17th century but doesn't include Alberta. The craft does get a mention in this page on Leopold and the Congo.

Siluro Dirigibile a Lenta Corsa
or S.L.C. "slow course torpedo", "slow-running torpedo". Wikipedia Italy‘s Navy was among the first to experiment with manned torpedos. Though according to 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. 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, 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 (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 (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. [3]

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. 757

Professor Knott
Cargill Knott (1856-1922), professor of physics; seismologist. See his biography here.

Page 532

Kimura
Cf page 29:Kimura and 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
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 page 456:Pencil). For a figure and a not quite precise definition see 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 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 page 29:De Forest.

Gibbs
Cf page 29:Professor Gibbs.

Maxwell Equations
Cf page 58:Maxwell Field Equations.

Page 533

aniline teal
The wallpaper dye; aniline dyes were the first synthetic dyes, discovered by 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.[4].

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.[5].

in the mood for a clambake
Anachronistic Broadway show tune? If so, the clambake in Carousel turns into a brawl; the assembled 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.
Heidsieck & Co. Monopole is one of the oldest Champagne firms in all of France's Champagne region. The origins go back to the 18th century.
There is, since 1898, a well known restaurant called Monopole Lunch & Sea Grill in Plattsburgh of upper New York state. (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. (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 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 [6]; those other Jews worshipped the Tetragrammatron. [7] 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 clothing . . . 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 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 Poiret Gown. The New York Times reported on February 1, 2007 that A Poiret Gown Brings $5,500 at Christie's Auction - the gown was made in 1913 when Poiret was at the height of his career. For his bio see 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 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 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 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. [8].

Cf 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, . . .

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, used for gaming tables. I.e., heads falling onto tables.

Page 537

broken symmetries
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 Identify the Broken Symmetry; or even more 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 wikipedia entry

Or, possibly another oblique reference to Yeats' poem 'The Second Coming,' which starts with a 'gyre,' ends with a 'sphinx,' and is widely seen as expressing the poet's appalled reaction to the human violence unleashed by WWI. The sphinx in the poem appears to be the incarnation of the baffling spirit of human cruelty, as well as out-of-control technology, of the newborn 20th Century. [9].

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

chemin-de-fer table
A European card game, literal translation railroads. The Britannica entry

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 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".

Russell was an anarchist, however, and therefore maybe deserving the honorific "mad dog".

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.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician and social critic. Best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. In late spring of 1901 he discovered the so-called 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
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 page 526:Gibbsian Vectors).

square root of minus one
Imaginary number (Cf page 133:Imaginary Number). The imaginary numbers i, j, k are used in defining a Quaternion (Cf page 525:Quaternions).

'Triangle Asana'
A basic yoga pose.

Here are images of several basic poses.

'Dr Rao abruptly vanished'
Might be a reference to Martin Gardner's "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. [10]

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 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 might suggest 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.

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) [11] 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[12] .

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. 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 [13].

• In Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film 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."

• 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 (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. (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 [14].

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. 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 A Prayer for Owen Meany by 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." [15]

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?" [16]

What this had *me* thinking of was the aria "Es gibt ein Reich" in the Richard Strauss/Hugo von Hofmannstal opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" [17]. 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. [18] 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
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 Schlieffen Plan included an attack on France through Belgium, disregarding its neutrality.

Wilhelm has offered Leopold part of France, the ancient Duchy of Burgundy
History of the duchy. 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. 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. 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)." (Wikipedia)

mayonnaise
Brautigan's "Trout Fishing in America" famously ends with the word mayonnaise. 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 Brabançonne, shocking a large part of the Belgian population. [19]

Louis XV
King of France 1715-1774 [20].

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 [21]. 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.[22].

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. (duc de Richelieu and cf 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. (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

Mayonnaise 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 "crystallized cottonseed oil". Note in the next few pages a mention of Candlebrow -- underscoring a tie-in between Mayonnaise and Smegmo. Discussion

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
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. [23]. 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 Roald Dahl's 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.[24]. 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 [25] 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 decomposed; 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." [26]

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.

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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 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). Wikipedia article.

Temesvár
Now Timişoara, extreme western Romania.

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prefiguration...of the holy City
City of God, ala Augustine? The Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophers[27] , as explored in the book Ian McEwan says he lent Pynchon? [citation needed]