Difference between revisions of "ATD 821-848"

Revision as of 20:01, 10 March 2007

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

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Page 821

John of Asia
John of Asia, also called John of Ephesus, was a 6th-century church leader and historian. The ruins of Ephesus are located in western Asia Minor, now in Turkey.

Pola
Pola, the largest city in Istria, is situated at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula 52 miles directly south of Trieste. From the 19th century through World War I, Pola was the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

the Bocche di Cattaro
The Bocche di Cattaro, the Gulf of Kotor, is a winding bay on the Adratic Sea in Montenegro. The gulf is in fact a submerged River canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj river which used ot run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen.

coastline approaching infinite length
Another reference to the "crisis" in mathematics. The closer you look at the coastline, the longer it gets. If you could view it from infinitely close up, it would become infinitely long. This is a specific reference to Fractal Geometry (another fractal reference — self-similarity over scael — occurs on page 575: inside that labyrinth). Benoit Mandelbrot, in Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension discusses the infinite coastline of Britain: "We will see that . . . the final estimated length is not only extremely large but in fact so large that it is best considered infinite." The Euclidean view of the coastline's length would be akin to simply measuring off the distance around the island. The fractal view suggests, however, that the coastline is far from straight. The fact that a coastline is usually rugged with twists and turns both small and large leads us to conclude that the actual length of the coastline is much larger than the straight-line distance. The more we examine the twists and turns, the more we realize that they are smaller and smaller copies of the larger original, making their way deeper and deeper into the coastline itself. Depending upon how small a yardstick we choose to measure the coastline, the numeric outcome becomes larger. The final length of our measured coastline becomes bigger and bigger as the essence of what we measure becomes smaller and smaller, ie. the estimated length continues to increase as the ruler length decreases.
Although this pov is true, might this line mean that the "coastline" of the Adreatic Sea, which is where Bocche di Cattaro is, circling as it does on the inside, almost connects with itself? When it would be "infinite". See Wikipedia.

Wikipedia ?

Page 822

Jacintha Drulov
The surname suggests the necessity of wiping the "drool off" the gentlemen's chins.

Obsessive searching turned up two Drulovs. First is a brand of pellet gun made first in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic. The Drulov DU-10 Condor is a popular target pistol. The second Drulov is very odd (I mean the connection is very odd; probably an entirely conventional fellow). A historian of medicine named Richard Koch left Germany in 1936 and spent the rest of his life in a Russian spa town, Essentuki. His old university, Tübingen, acquired his papers and created an online index. It lists a letter to Koch from one Druloff, identified as—here it comes—the director of a balneological institute: a center for the study of therapeutic baths. This is just too zany to mean anything, and I don't expect this note to survive the wiki editing process, but it truly did make my hackles stand up for a moment. --Volver 16:07, 21 February 2007 (PST)

Lady Quethlock
Quethlock is/was a place in Australia in 1915.

Zhenski Tzrnogorski Institut
Montenegrin: Montenegrin Female Institute. Женски Црногорски Институт. The use of "tz" in the transliteration (instead of present-day "ts") signals an old source and may indicate that Pynchon has found a real school. Differences between the Montenegrin and Serbian languages are relatively slight. --Volver 09:06, 5 February 2007 (PST)

Cetinje
Cetinje is a town in southwestern Montenegro. It nestles on a small Karst plain surrounded by limestone mountains.

Page 823

Baden-Powell
Pronounced BAY-den POLE (other branches of the family say POOL). Robert Baden-Powell (1857-1941) was a British officer and spy who after service in the Boer Wars founded the Boy Scouts.

Applied Idiotics
I suggest this is a minor theme of AtD. Every couple of chapters we have a reference to someone learning to act like an idiot (never a fool, a zany, an imbecile, a twit—always an idiot). Is there a connection to the notion of the "holy fool" here? --Volver 08:17, 21 January 2007 (PST)

Chipping Sodbury
A real town in the west of England, birthplace of J. K. Rowling. Throughout AtD "sod" is a derogatory name for sodomite, homosexual.

M.6I.
In fact MI6, Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 6 (UK), responsible for collection of overseas intelligence. Deliberate solecism by Bevis the Idiot? -Seems more likely it's Pynchon having some fun.

Page 824

a Tsarist school
See the annotation to page 822.

Page 825

Eridanus
The Eridanus is a river of Hades in Greek mythology whose name has been adopted by paleogeographers to describe the real ice age river that ran where the Baltic Sea is now. There have been various guesses at which real river was the Eridanus: the Po in north Italy, and the Nile and the Danube.

Virgil
Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) was an ancient Roman poet, the author of the Aeneid, a Roman Empire's national epic. He also was Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory in The Divine Comedy.

the Argo
The Argo was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius of Rhodes (early 3rd century-after 246 BC) was a poet, scholar and director of the Library of Alexandria. He is best known for his epic poem the Argonautica, which told the mythological story of Jason and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece.

Euxine to Cronian Seas
Euxine Sea → Black Sea, a sea between Europe and Asia.
Cronia Sea → North Polar Sea.

Colchis
Colchis was a nearly triangular ancient Georgian region, now mostly the western part of Georgia. In Greek mythology it was the home of Medea and the destination of the Argonauts.

Medea
Medea was the daughter of King Aeētes of Colchis and later wife of Jason.

the Timavo
The Timavo river has its source at the foot of Mount Nevoso, the highest mountain top of the Slovenian Carso. It flows through most of the Karstic Plateau underground and comes up to the surface again in San Giovanni di Duino. Jason and the Argonauts were able to reach the Black Sea and safety by going up the mouths of the Ister river first and then of the Timarvo river.

Padus
The Padus, the Latin name of the Po, is a river that flows 400 miles eastward across northern Italy from Monviso in Alps to the Adriatic Sea near Venice. It is the longest river in Italy.

Timavus
A river described by Virgil in his Argonautica, which some scholars claimed is the Rhine.

the Amber Islands
The islands, Brac, Hvar, Vis, etc, in the Adriatic Sea next to the Croatian coast were known to ancient Greeks as the Amber Islands.

Page 826

Metković
Metković is a city in the southeastern end of Croatia close to Montenegro.

Kotor
Kotoa, located in a most secluded part of Gulf of Kotor, is a coastal town in Montenegro.

Ragusa
Ragusa, now called Dubrovnik,is an old city on the Adriatic Sea coast in the extreme south of Croatia about midway between Metković and Kotor.

a brodet full of skarpina
Brodet is a general name for a fish stew on the Croatian coast. It is generally made from various types of fish—skarpina, ugor, skusa, etc. See a picture of skarpina fish.

the Gulf of Cattaro
Cf page 821: the Bocche di Cattaro.

the Bay of Teodo
The outermost part, the entrance, of the Gulf of Cattaro is the Bay of Teodo (or Bay of Tivat).

Zelenika
Zelenika is a little village near Herceg-Novi in the Bay of Teodo, the entrance to the Gulf of Kotor, in Montenegro.

Hum
A village on the Adriatic coast in Herzegovina.

Mostar
An inland city southwest of Sarajevo, about 90 miles northwest of Ragusa in Herzegovina.

"This 'annexation' is a Habsburg death-warrant"
Literally true; it resulted directly in the death of the Habsburg heir in 1914 and the dismemberment of the Empire in 1918-1919.

Page 827

Black Hand
Street name for "Union or Death" (Уједињење или Смрт, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), founded 1911, secret society to promote formation of a Greater Serbia. I.e., freedom fighters or terrorists depending on your point of view.

Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, and his accomplices, were members.

Sephardic Jews
Sephardic Jews are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula, including the descendants of those subject to expulsion from Spain by order of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497.

Salonica
Salonica, now known as Thessaloniki, is Greece's second-largest city and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is Greece's second major economical, induatrial, commercial and cultural center as weel as a major transportation hub in southeastern Europe. Salonica's Jewish community, largely of Sephardic background comprised 49% of the city's population as late as 1902 but only less than 0.5% now. But the Jewish influence on the city is still very strong.

Judezmo
Also known as Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews, i.e. those originating in Moorish Spain (Sepharad). Just as Yiddish is a German dialect written with Hebrew characters, with admixture of Hebrew loan words, Judezmo/Ladino is medieval Spanish written with Hebrew characters with admixture of Hebrew loan words [1]. As Pynchon partially explains, the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees from the Spanish Expulsion of Jews and Moslems following the completion of the Christian Reconquest in 1497 (those who remained faced the Inquisition, forcible conversion, or false conversion: outward following of Catholicism with underground Jewish worship; those who followed this third course were called Marranos). The Ottomans settled these refugees in border areas and places of uncertain allegiance to the Empire (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Serbia, parts of North Africa) on the theory that these would be grateful and loyal Ottoman subjects.

the Evidenzbüro
Cf page 711: the Evidenzbüro.
Another information-collating agency. German: evidence office.

Page 828

the forty-fifth parallel
It is a line roughly from Belgrade (Serbia) through Turin (Italy) to Bordeaux (France).

glacis
Part of a fortification, usually of a city wall.

The glacis is an artificial slope of earth in the front of works such as fortifications or a city wall, so constructed as to keep any potential assailant under fire to the last possible moment. (A vertical city wall can not achieve that.)

raki
An anise-flavored Turkish alcoholic beverage.

Page 829

"set to spy"
seems a typo for "sent to spy" because of next phrase.

Careva Ulica
Croatian: Emperor Street.

Žilavka
A wine from Macedonia.

Page 830

Webley
British military issue revolver. (Webley Revolver).

Kiprskni
Misha and Grisha are perfectly capable of saying "Cyprian" or the Russian counterpart "Kiprian"; is this superconsonantal garble just their private joke?

tchistka
Or chistka. Russian: the cleanup.

. . . left him alone . . . with a loaded pistol, expecting a . . . traditional suicide
Cf page 712: Hotel Klomser & Colonel Alfred Redl.
Though Colonel Max Khäutsch uses the pistol to shoot his way out, this - and much of what we have learned of Khäutsch‘s career - strongly recalls the fate of Oberst (german for Colonel) Alfred Redl (1864-1913), whose suicide has "entered the folklore of the business" as well. Redl was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter-intelligence efforts of Austria-Hungary. His term in office was marked by innovation, and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence agents. When the Russians learned that he was a homosexual, they blackmailed him into committing treason against his homeland, although the Russians made quite substantial cash payments. The Austrian found out about this much too late and by chance only. In the early hours of Sunday morning May 25, 1913, Colonel Alfred Redl blew his brains out in a room at the Hotel Klomser, in the fashionable Herrengasse district of Vienna. He was permitted to "judge himself" after interrogation.
Wikipedia 1 2 3 forum entry 1 forum entry 2 paysite

Platz Am Hof . . . Kredit-Anstalt . . . the Hofburg briefly became Dodge City
Hof = german court. Some geographical confusion here: the War Ministry resided at "Platz Am Hof" 17 (later 2) german Wikipedia 2 from 1776 until 1912. The building was demolished "a short time before WW1" and replaced with the headquarters of the "Länderbank", by now owned by the "Bank Austria - Creditanstalt". At the given time the only building "next door" to the one of the War-Ministry was a church. The contributor is not sure whether there was a bank at "Platz Am Hof" yet when the Colonel fled. Furthermore, the "Platz Am Hof" is not to be confused with the "Hofburg". At "Am Hof" the Dukes of Babenberg Wikipedia resided until 1246. When the Habsburgs took over, they took residence much closer to the city-walls about 600 meters away to the south in what was to become he "Hofburg". interactive map

Fehim Pasha
Head of Turkish secret police, assassinated after the 1908 revolution.

that Brusa job
??? (Brusa, Bursa, is a city in northwestern Turkey).

Page 831

arificial
Error for artificial.

the muezzins
The chosen persons at the mosque who lead the call to Friday service and the five daily prayers from one of the mosque's minarets.

tsiftê-télli
Greek, derived from Turkish: belly dancing. See this site for an explanation.

Page 832

fezzes
Aside from the magical explanation in the text, isn't this a silent movie gag too?

Page 833

Kiseljak
Kiseljak is a small town in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, located northeast of Sarajevo.

Zenica
Zenica, the fourth largest city in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is situated by the Bosna river about 40 miles north of Sarajevo.

Page 834

Zdravo, gospodini
Serbian/Croatian: Hello, gentlemen.

Ne razumen
Croatian/Serbian: not reasonable.

Page 835

"Union or Death"
See annotations to page 827.

lignite
Also called "brown coal," a dirty-burning fuel.

Page 836

poljes
Serbian/Croatian? As explained in text.

Djavola
Croatian/Serbian? "The Devil!"

Page 837

Mauser
German-made rifle.

En tu kulo Dio!
I just don't believe this is Serbian or Croatian; one of Danilo's many other languages? --Volver 15:43, 21 January 2007 (PST) It's sort of Spanish (Danilo is originally a Spanish Jew) meaning: "fucking God!" -- Blicero2 09 March 2007

Page 838

Page 839

...he found that for some undefined time now he had not even been imagining desire, its arousal, its fulfillment, or any occasion for it
This is the absence of all desire (even of the desire to not desire) that is the goal of all Buddhist spritiual development, enlightenment, the highest state, the release from Maya (illusion). Cyprian has found it through intense caring. In a sense he has found Shambhala, in the middle of the "Balkan Powderkeg".

But he has found it in the mountains, away from the circumstances of the Bosnian Crisis. These mountains are as lawless, anarchic as Pynchon's Colorado Rockies; there, too, the Traverses seem to find fulfillment(s), or anyway are free to do so in the same way Cyprian is free in Bosnia--he is at least temporarily unmoored (perhaps outside Time). This all brings to mind Eliot's line in The Wasteland: "In the mountains, there you feel free"(I, 17).

Page 840

Page 841

konak
Apparently Turkish: mansion.

Page 842

Vesna
Whatever her name may signify in Greek, it also corresponds to the Russian word for "spring" (the season).

Page 843

the mosqueless idea of a city . . . orthogonal
When the Young Turks abandon the mosque as the center of civic life, they must adopt the European model with streets meeting at right angles.
Cf. Cartesian grid of Chicago.
Precisely.

iconostasis
The screen in an Orthodox church where icons are hung.

merakloú
Greek: coquette.

Tha spáso koúpes
???

argilés
Bastard plural (i.e., English -s grafted to singular) of a Greek word argilé or arghilé: water pipe, nargileh, hookah.

Page 844

kombolói
???

karsilamás
A face-to-face couple dance.

Amán
An exclmation of mercy, Turkish in origin. From online Glossary of Greek.

Stin ipochí
???

bottom dead center of the European Question
In a rotary system like the crankshaft of an engine, angles and times are reckoned from one of two points: top dead center and bottom dead center. Bottom dead center occurs when the piston is at its lowest point and stationary for an instant.

Page 845

dervisidhes
Dervish boys? See later use.

Gabrovo Slim
Gabrovo is a city in northern central Bulgaria, 100 miles east of Sofia. Another AtD character named for his physique (like, e.g., Flaco = "slim" in Spanish).
Apropos of Flaco: This web site remarks on the number of people named Slim who were involved in the Mexican Revolution.

rembetes
rembet (pl. rembetes): The most well-known name given a member of the Greek urban sub-culture of the early 20th century. Originally thought to derive from the Turkish, Stathis Gauntlet has presented an analysis that throws this into doubt. from: Online glossary of Greek Slang

Gotse Deltchev
Or Delchev (1872-1903), killed in the St. Ilya's Day uprising against Turkish rule in Macedonia.

Big Bulgaria
I.e., Bulgaria as it existed then plus all areas considered by Bulgarians to be inhabited by other Bulgarians, Macedonia above all.

Page 846

Tsoupra mou
???

Karakas Effendi
???

Dervish Boys
dervisi (pl. dervisades): In Turkish, a dervish, member of the Mevlevi sect. In rembetika,-a musical unerworld-- used to denote a hash smoker.

Exarch
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, deputy to a patriarch.

The City
Constantinople. Its present name, Istanbul (Stambul), comes from the Greek phrase eis ten polin (είς την πολιν): into the City.

Eminönü
Dock area of Constantinople at the mouth of the Golden Horn, on the south (Stambul) side of that inlet.

Stamboul
Former English spelling of Stambul or Istanbul.

Page 847

Page 848

Ultraviolet Catastrophe
The Rayleigh-Jeans law says that the intensity of radiation emitted at any wavelength λ by a body at a temperature T is proportional to T/λ⁴. Jacintha, "carelessly radiant," is following the law into the short-wavelength region (small λ) where it does not apply. The failure of Rayleigh-Jeans in the ultraviolet or short-wavelength range—it predicts infinitely intense radiation, contrary to observation—is referred to as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.

I am offended only by certain sorts of wallpaper
Allusion to a famous quote of Oscar Wilde's: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." Sometimes cited as his last words, it actualy dates to a month before he died in 1900 [2], [3]. Cyprian's apparent spiritual transformation is continuing here; sarcastic as ever, he realizes the nature of love and the superficiality of materialism. One of his natures, the old or the new, the superficial "wallpaper", or the authentic self he is discovering, has to go. That he should voice this in a Wildean witticism is pure Cyprian.

Annotation Index