ATD 892-918
- Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.
Contents
- 1 Page 892
- 2 Page 893
- 3 Page 894
- 4 Page 895
- 5 Page 896
- 6 Page 897
- 7 Page 898
- 8 Page 899
- 9 Page 900
- 10 Page 901
- 11 Page 902
- 12 Page 903
- 13 Page 904
- 14 Page 905
- 15 Page 906
- 16 Page 907
- 17 Page 908
- 18 Page 909
- 19 Page 910
- 20 Page 911
- 21 Page 912
- 22 Page 913
- 23 Page 914
- 24 Page 915
- 25 Page 916
- 26 Page 917
- 27 Page 918
- 28 Annotation Index
Page 892
coglioni
???
Bloomsbury
Fashionable London district including the British Museum and University College London.
west of Regents Park
The huge park is in northern central London. To the west are Lisson, Paddington, Westbourne Green, Kensal Town and other districts.
Page 893
taximeter cab
The taximeter is the device that measures and totalizes miles traveled.
Fedora
Capitalized because at the time it was recognized as a proper name: from Sardou's play Fédora. Description, picture and history on Wikipedia.
Lampo
Italian-made pistol.
Peckham Rye
District in southeast London.
Vitaï Lampada
The Newbolt poem quoted by Cyprian on page 813.
pietà
Works so titled commonly show Mary, the mother of Jesus, with his body after its removal from the cross.
Page 894
predators' wings
Western art mostly depicts angels with the wings of prey species, namely doves.
Angel of Death
This angel appears in V. and GR too.
Pegamoid traveler's satchel
Pegamoid: a fabric coated with plasticized nitrocellulose; used for early aircraft fuselages, convertible roofs and wallets. There is a Pegamoid Road in the borough of Enfield, London.
Page 895
capitalist temples . . . those of us who do
Is Dally a concrete being or an abstraction? Here she is flipping back and forth.
The Spirit of Bimetallism
Beautiful image of a perfectly spiritless policy.
semeuse
French: girl sowing seeds.
Charlie Sykes Charles Robinson Sykes was a sculptor who designed the hood ornament for Rolls Royce, called "The Spirit of Ecstasy." See also p. 1074.
Page 896
Ralph Vaughan Williams
English composer, 1872-1958 [1]. He premiered the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in 1910.
Page 897
Page 898
mitzvah
Hebrew: good or worthy deed.
character juvenile
In a theater company the "juvenile" played a young man, counterpart to the ingenue. "Character" is almost an antonym for a stock player, having the ability to play many roles without limitation by physical type.
vocal range was half an octave
A song as simple as "Home on the Range" calls for a full octave of range. Half an octave is not much more than inflected humming.
Shaftesbury Avenue, the Strand, Haymarket, and Kings Way
The rough quadrangle bounded by these streets lies west of the City and includes Covent Garden, the Royal Opera House, the National Portrait Gallery and one entrance to Charing Cross railway station.
from Camberwell Green to Notting Hill Gate
Camberwell Green is in southeast London, Notting Hill Gate in the west central part of the area.
Scotch eggs
A delicacy Americans often just refuse to believe: a hard-boiled egg enrobed in sausage meat and deep-fried.
Page 899
beauties of photogravuredom
When newspapers used the gravure process, costs dictated they reserve it for pictorial material of special value, often publishing a separate section or even a magazine showing fashionably dressed women.
Page 900
Finsbury
North of the City of London and near the suggestively named Shoreditch.
Northumberland Avenue
Upscale street near Charing Cross and Scotland Yard.
in expensive déshabillé
Déshabillé is French: undressed. I.e., dressed (expensively) but not dressed to go out.
Page 901
Sirius, which ruled this part of the summer
Problem. In old beliefs, Sirius "ruled" late summer (the "Dog Days") by lining up with the Sun so that their heats added together. In other words, Sirius moves with the sun at this time of the year, setting just after sunrise or rising just before it. The Star in the text rises at sundown and continues ascending until about midnight; this is what Sirius does within a week or two of January 1. So the narrator (this narrator) has the wrong Star.
The bright stars Altair (in the constellation Aquila), Deneb (in Cygnus) and Vega (in Lyra) do ascend through the evening in the summer. None of them has much associated lore (benign/malign influences), and none is as brilliant as Sirius either.
It's worth asking whether Halley's or another comet might be involved here. But Halley's Comet was visible in April and May 1910, while the Great Daylight Comet of 1910 appeared around the first of the year.
This is not the only astronomical glitch in AtD; see the annotations to page 796 for another.--Volver 19:04, 23 January 2007 (PST)
Page 902
West End
Area, centered roughly on Shaftesbury Avenue, where London legitimate theaters concentrate. British equivalent of Broadway.
Page 903
Page 904
Page 905
Page 906
Page 907
Page 908
Page 909
Page 910
Page 911
Page 912
Page 913
Page 914
Page 915
Page 916
Page 917
Page 918
Annotation Index
Part One: The Light Over the Ranges |
|
---|---|
Part Two: Iceland Spar |
119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428 |
Part Three: Bilocations |
429-459, 460-488, 489-524, 525-556, 557-587, 588-614, 615-643, 644-677, 678-694 |
Part Four: Against the Day |
695-723, 724-747, 748-767, 768-791, 792-820, 821-848, 849-863, 864-891, 892-918, 919-945, 946-975, 976-999, 1000-1017, 1018-1039, 1040-1062 |
Part Five: Rue du Départ |