ATD 460-488

Revision as of 09:59, 11 January 2007 by Phidre (Talk | contribs) (Page 486)

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


Page 460

so close... rocking
(Fact?)

Page 461

bust
Eg 'gone bust'?

day... set to the side
Title motif.

phantom rooms
cf the Vibe mansion, p.160

came by
(Page ref.)

Page 462

'cute
The word 'cute' is a shortened form of 'acute'.

Fickle Creek
???

ice-points
???

red whiskey
???

Noctambulo
Sleepwalker (Spanish).

insomnia
Parody of think tanks, etc?

Page 463

"echoed off the steep mountainside"
One hit.

for no more
Solecism?

Silent Gray Fellows
???

Indian V-twins
Motorcycles first produced in 1907 by the Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company Wikipedia entry.

Joe Hill's "Pie in the Sky"
A/k/a "The Preacher and the Slave." Song written by IWW leader Joe Hill Wikipedia entry in 1911 that was an attack on organized religion as a means for keeping the workers down: "You get pie in the sky when you die." A parody of "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." Lyrics here. Later recorded by Woody Guthrie.

ancient flat-out labor nihilists
Notice fierce value judgment.

love lines, life lines, girdles of Venus
Lines in the palm figuring in palmistry. Wikipedia entry.

overmapped
???

barbwire
AtD usually says 'bobwire'.

Four Corners Gang
Name given to Sloat and Deuce after what happened with Sloat's wife, Lake, at the Four Corners. Evidently, the gang has many more members now.

Taos Lightning
???

Zoltan
???

Werner
Allusion, homage, to Werner von Braun, rocket scientist?

Page 464

Excelsior
???

divide a fellow into two
Iceland spar motif.

Vang Feeley
???

silencer bypass
???

multiple outcomes
Worldline motif.

clock-seconds
(Interesting disambiguation.)

routine as elaborate
I'm thinking maybe Ann Margaret in a 50s biker flick?

Page 465

Ed Chase's town
See page 176.

Tortoni's
See page 176.

Bill Jones's
???

honorary Negro
???

ankle-biter
???

breakbeam stiff
???

couple wives
(Divorce, or bigamy?)

Coahuila
Northern Mexican state where Frank unexpectedly found--and shot--Sloat Fresno in a Cantina.

Well.
Not an answer, apparently.

Page 466

Hammers o' Hell
???

Jephthah
Alt. Jephtha. (Heb. יפתח). Israelite judge who semi-purposefully sacrificed his daughter to God following his victories of war against the Ammons. Judges 11-12.

narrow-gauge
???

traitor to his class
???

mucker work
???

South Slavic knitted caps
???

Austrian boys
???

vengeful ghosts
???

Page 467

fifteen years old... Julius
Groucho Marx. Indeed born 1890, but didn't tour West until aged 20+. Wikipedia

Mr. Archer
???

Victor
Colorado mining town near Cripple Creek.

East Ninety-third
???

Page 468

Cone Amor
'Con amor' = 'with love' (Spanish). Ice cream cones were invented in 1904, so this is not quite anachronistic.

me? lady
Capitalisation typo, or stylistic?

Fruita
Town on Colorado's Western Slope.

Lois... Poutine
???

Page 469

teeth were gone
It's only been a couple of years. She's about 50.

Page 470

bengalines
???

Barbary Coast
???

lettuce opium
Lactucarium, the milky fluid secreted by several species of lettuce, usually from the base of the stems. Lactucarium is known as lettuce opium because of its sedative and analgesic properties, and because it can be reduced to a thick smokeable solid. Long known in the U.S., regained popularity in the 1960's when people were looking for any cheap way to get high.

Page 471

Hippodrome
???

Page 472

reoccupation
Replacing Indians?

criminal palps
???

Page 473

Crystal... Oneida
Oneida crystal is a type of glassware. Google search

sash-weights . . . casementing
Extended and complicated figure likening, in part, a sky full of an approaching storm to a window in an old house. Specifically the sound of thunder is compared to sash-weights, the counter-balances built into all wooden windows (which enable an opened window, for example, to remain open instead of slamming shut), the sky itself the casement, or "neatly carpentered" frame, concealing those sash-weights.

Page 474

inside the angle
Echoes p258.

Page 475

double-ought
Deuce had been in Cripple Creek by 1895 (p195). He might have returned, or not been present.

Page 476

put his head into
pic

Wall o' Death
To ride the Wall of Death, rev up your motorcycle and guide it onto the inside of the cylindrical wall. Centrifugal force keeps you up. The act works best with multiple bikes. Either the wall is open gridwork or the "tip" (audience) sits above looking down into the cylinder.

ellipses
Roman arenas, like most American football stadiums today, were generally built so that the perimeter created an ellipse.

Page 477

"For It Is Thou, Lord"
???

Eugene Boilster.
???

Happy Jack La Foam
???

police ticker
???

Flor de Coahuila
???

twenty-five
Would make him 15 in 1895 (p195).

Page 478

senorita chinga chinga
Senorita fuck fuck

mas cerveza
No 'por favor'!

co-conscious
(What's Pynchon up to with this word?)

more shit
Because shot through gut.

surprisingly careful latchclick
Nice!

Page 479

Tace Boilster
???

Page 480

Elsie Dinsmore
???

Roy Mickie
???

Salida
???

blue columbines
???

atole con el dedo
???

Page 481

caps
Pun.

wall of death
(Mayva's not dead!?)

a week or ten days
(Contradicts recent text?)

Page 482

getting deep
Wifely surrender is a con?

Page 483

heeled
Armed.

Champagne
Pynchon consistently capitalises this. And he is grammatically correct so to do.

Page 484

before the days
Title motif?

eyeball hydraulics
Tears, not rolling eyes.

Swede
See p266.

separate tracks
Worldline motif.

Page 485

delivered into his own life
(Born doomed, or early bad karma?)

Furies
The Erinyes, or euphemistically the Eumenides: three Greek goddesses of vengeance: Tisiphone, Electa, Megaera.

"free"
???

no little ones
Fertility karma.

Sioux... melancholy
Un-cliched?

her belly
(Naked?)

Page 486

Phoebe Sloper
???

seldom
(With no kids, why not more free time?)

all he talked about
To Deuce, Webb mentions Lake only once (p. 196). No trace of Lake being "all he talked about" in the text. On page 197, he cries out the names of his sons.

Page 487

'Child of the Storm'
Cf p190. Deuce is not present during that passage.

stove shovel
For emptying wood ashes.

Greener shotgun
???

she lit up
(Anxiety, or freedom?)

Page 488

cahoots
Marriage as cahoots?

Annotation Index

Part One:
The Light Over the Ranges

1-25, 26-56, 57-80, 81-96, 97-118

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

1063-1085

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