Difference between revisions of "ATD 1-25"

Revision as of 14:07, 15 March 2007

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

cover text

The black text and its drop shadows are in different typefaces. It may be worth noting, from a conceptual point of view, that we can infer from the angle of the drop shadows that the light source is any individual holding the book—that is, the reader or a potential reader.

cover seal

The seal appears to be written in Tibetan language, according to somebody who posts regularly to Pynchon-l under the name "Ya Sam", who reports:

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to forward my request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose generosity we owe the solution of one more ATD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

Dear Ya Sam,

I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin Namgyal. He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of commerce. Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

Best wishes,

Sandy Belth

Tibetan Cultural Center

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the doubloon in Moby-Dick that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

copyright page

The copyright page states that Against the Day is published by Viking Penguin, but on the title page and elsewhere we can read that the book is published by Penguin Press. The copyright pages of other books from Penguin Press state "Penguin Press" as the publisher, as could be expected, and it seems likely that the substitution of "Penguin Press" with "Viking" is one of many typographical errors in the book (see errata). I have confirmed from inside Penguin Press that this is a copyediting mistake. Here is a direct e-mail answer about the Viking Penguin listing: "this was a copyediting mistake that will be corrected. There was never a Viking contract for this book."

Dedication

Most of Pynchon's novels contain dedications-- Mason & Dixon ("For Melanie, and for Jackson") , Vineland ("For my mother and father"), and Gravity's Rainbow ("For Richard Fariña")-- but not so Against the Day, as published. Advance reading copies of the book did contain the words "Dedication TK" in italics, but this is simply publisher-speak for "dedication to come." It is unknown whether Pynchon ever considered inclusion of a dedication or whether the publisher simply left the page open just in case, but the ultimate lack of a dedication may suggest that Pynchon feels he's thanked everyone he needs to thank.

Epigraph

"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." - Thelonious Monk
Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (Slow Learner, Introduction). The Chumps of Choice blog notes that: 1) in his youth, Pynchon allegedly referred to Monk as a "God"; 2) the character McClintic Sphere in V. takes Monk's middle name, Sphere; and 3) "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" was apparently something Monk was given to saying, rather than something he once said. For more on McClintic Sphere and Monk, see Charles Hollander's essay Does McClintic Sphere in V. stand for Thelonious Monk?. On page 732: "...daylit America ... its steadfast denial of night."

Page 1

The Light Over the Ranges
Range is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as "a line or series of mountains or hills : the coastal ranges of the northwest," so "range" or "ranges" can be used to denote a number of mountains. 'Ranges' may also refer to farms, homesteads and ranches in 1893 America. America was predominantly that in 1893. Cf. "Home, home on the range". A range is also a group of diverse objects.

Page 3

"Now single up all lines!"
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

But the opening line has many possible connotations.

The Modern Word's Quail writes that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that Against the Day is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name."

"Single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in V., 11; COL49, 31; Gravity's Rainbow, 489; and Mason & Dixon, 258, 260. Perhaps we can understand this "line" as a text-string linking Pynchon's novels together (all but Vineland?)--in preparation for a voyage to...?

"Cheerly now...handsomely...very well!!"
Cheerly means "heartily," and was traditionally used as cry of encouragement among sailors. Handsomely (in nautical context): carefully, in good order, unhurriedly.

Pynchon served in the Navy and uses nautical language in most of his novels. Mason & Dixon: "Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads..." (54).

"Windy City, here we come!"
The nickname for Chicago, of course, but in 1893 the use meant city of braggarts more than it did wind. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876, and involve Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. A popular myth states that "Windy City" was first used by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, even after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition both ended. Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia

Now secure the Special Sky Detail
When a naval vessel is departing from port or returning to port, a specially trained team is put in charge of the complicated process. The command is, "Now set the Special Sea Detail." Inconvenience is run along fairly strict naval lines—given the age of the officers and crew, you might say she is a tot ship—and the beginning of the book was preceded by an analogous "Now set the Special Sky Detail." Once the ship is aloft and clear of ground obstructions, the command comes, "Now secure the Special Sky Detail," meaning disband the team for the time being and all return to regular duties. The language, tasks and customs aboard the skyship will show parallels to navy usage throughout the book.

summer uniform of red-and-white-striped blazer and trousers of sky blue
Calls to mind the color scheme of Ned Land's (Kirk Douglas) costume in Disney's 1954 film version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.

Also calls to mind the colors of the American flag.

"scuttlebutt" . . . thousand . . . wonders
A most vigorous campaign [to host the Columbian Exposition] was then inaugurated, the three other cities making a common cause against Washington, whose claim was based on the fact that the proposed exposition was to be held under auspices of the national government, and hence that the capital was the most appropriate place.... By each of the claimants every advantage was urged, and by each of their rivals every defect was exaggerated. Congressional committees accorded a hearing to the several delegations, that of Chicago being represented, among others, by DeWitt C. Cregier, Thomas B. Bryan, and Edward T. Jeffery. from "Book of the Fair" by Hubert Bancroft, 1893.

"Scuttlebutt" is a very close equivalent to "water-cooler gossip." Here is a glossary of nautical terms with some of the etymologies.

Inconvenience
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold and the Susanna Squaducci (V.), and the John E. Badass (GR). Chumps of Choice blog notes that the British Royal Navy has a long tradition of warships with names like Impulsive, Incendiary, Inconstant, Indignant, etc. Impulsive is the name of the ship Ploy, who loses all his teeth in V., gets transferred to. Inconvenience is an apt name for the Chums' adventures in 'reality'. They are an inconvenience; they are inconvenienced. (In having to take on Chick Counterfly, for example).

Also, recall Fender-Belly Bodine, in Mason & Dixon: "Back on old H.M.S. Inconvenience, we wasted many a Day and Night watching that fancy Counter get smaller by the minute..." (p.28)

patriotic bunting
TRP reminds again that this is a very American skyship. AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

aeronautics
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied to the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of early aeronautics. 11th on Aeronautics

five-lad crew
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly. The commander's name evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

The Chums of Chance
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident. The "chance" may also be that of the winds that carry them in directions not always intended.

The American philospher Charles Sanders Peirce, who set down his most important ideas in the late 1800's, argued that 'Chance' was a feature of the universe that can refute all determinisms.

Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, Voice of the Hamster and The Boys, in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

The Chums are reminiscent of two comics of the early 20th century, Little Nemo in Slumberland, by Windsor McCay, and The Explorigator, by Harry Grant Dart. "The Explorigator" was the name of a fantastic airship that traversed the universe. It was manned by Admiral Fudge, a youthful adventurer and inventor, accompanied by a group of friends, also children his age (around nine or ten): Detective Rubbersole, Maurice Mizzentop, Nicholas Nohooks, Grenadier Shift, Teddy Typewriter, and Ah Fergetitt. The Explorigator ran for 14 weeks in 1908 and made an impression for its imaginative and visual creativity. More on The Explorigator ^[1]

The names of the Chums may also be derived from famous Jazz musicians: Miles (Davis), Chick (Corea), Darby (Hicks), (Boots) Randolph, and (Vachel) Lindsay (a stretch here?), notes the Chumps of Choice blog.

The creativity of Pynchon's naming of the Chums, as other characters, shows yet again his Dickensian influence.

Note that there's five Chums, the number of chapters of the book (a-and the number of letters in "Chums"!).

Chicago
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied on the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of 1890s Chicago. Brittanica 11th on Chicago

Also, The band Chicago's third hit song "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" deals with how one faces living in a world under constraints of time [1]. The opening lyrics are:

Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? About Time...

World's Columbian Exposition
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. Wikipedia entry. This World's Fair was enveloped in optimism for the future. "The thousand or more such wonders which awaited [the Chums] there." p.3

lifelines
Called "manropes" on sailing ships. Ropes running fore-and-aft above the gunwales to prevent sailors getting blown overboard. They were held up by short stanchions inserted into holes in the rails. Source: The Ashley Book of Knots, 1944.

as my faithful readers will remember
Pynchon here is immediately inserting this story into a larger canon of Chums of Chance fictions, titles of which are mentioned in subsequent pages.

mascotte
The English word 'mascot' has its origin in the late 19th cent.: from French mascotte. The spelling may also be a tribute to the Dutch brand of rolling papers. [Wikipedia]

Page 4

Professor
Randolph St. Cosmo is called Professor. Professor of flight as some early aeronauts were called?

"Turn to"
Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, V., chapter eleven. "Turn to" is also a shipboard expression, "put your back into it" or something of the kind.

Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you."
Perhaps an admonation from the author than familiar things will be easily overlooked?

Chick Counterfly
Three possibilities: (1) A counter fly is an annoyance in (say) the butcher's shop. (2) Chick always speaks "counter" to anyone else's "flight" of imagery. (3) The only non-AtD-related uses of this word that I've found came in patents describing mechanisms; "the counterfly direction" means contrary to the direction everything else is flying in, hence this character counters the flying of the craft?

He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there?

Like Suckling's name suggesting a relationship to another Pynchon character (Pig Bodine), Pynchon winks at a relationship between Counterfly and Tyrone Slothrop. In Counterfly´s first utterance in the book, “Ha ha,” cried young Counterfly, “say, but if you ain’t the most slob-footed chap I ever seen!” you can derive "Tyrone Slothrop" from an anagram of Counterfly and "slob-footed chap."

Huh? That's a pretty sloppy anagram, ain't it? What about that "b" and that"d" ... this is way too much of a stretch. There's something to these names, perhaps, but I don't think you're close here, friend.

Page 5

"all tableware with Chums of Chance Insignia is Organizational property"
The organization in question is the Chums of Chance themselves, here considered as an institution rather than as a collection of individuals.

Pugnax
The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog in Mason & Dixon. His manner of speech is somewhat reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and members of PYNCHON-L have speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from the Wallace and Gromit claymation films.

Could this name be an homage to the dog in the Asterix comics, Idéfix in French; Dogmatix in English? Many of the character in the Asterix comics have names ending in "x".

"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit)..."
This could be seen as a criticism of an American President, present or past. President Bush is a candidate, considering the Pynchon-authored Amazon.com book description which included "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

The Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's wild dogs". The wild dogs equal both political parties?

lavatorial assaults
"from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" recall the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in Gravity's Rainbow. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

Page 6

Princess Casamassima
Published 1886 (James had published two others by 1893), a classic dealing with terrorists, anarchists, and bombings. Full text Sequel to "Roderick Hudson". It's the only Henry James novel in which he takes on such overtly political subjects, the only one which deals with violent extremes of human behavior.

Thematically, it's reactionary, the opposite of AtD.

ATD is not reactionary but also not the opposite of Princess Casamassima thematically, it can be easily argued.

Pugnax prefers in his reading "sentimental tales about his own species [rather] than those exhibiting extremes of human behavior, which he appeared to find a bit lurid." It seems Pynchon is slyly commenting on James' Princess Casamassima here in that that James novel DID deal with 'extremes of human behaviour' yet Pugnax prefers 'sentimental tales'!
As many who have had dogs know, often when raised from puppyhood with loving owners, they 'think they are human'. Pugnax learns where to pee off the gondola - a pretty natural function for a dog - "like the rest of the crew".

Or: it is a theme in GR, that the book, writing itself, is an abstraction from experience and not, of course, the thing itself. Noseworth, "who placed upon the word 'book' . . . contempt" did, however, know the subject matter of 'Princess Casamassima.' He, Noseworth, hopes they will "suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the leaves of some book." It matters that the Chums ARE also characters in books of their adventures.

It should also be noted that the Princess Casamassima is one of the rare characters in James' novels who appears in more than one work. She was originally a character in the 1875 novel Roderick Hudson, where her name was, quite fittingly, Christina Light.

Placing . . . an emphasis
Lapse of authorial control? Surely the creator of the Chums novels would not write such a Pynchonian sentence fragment!

Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him
If Pugnax doesn't detect a human scent, that suggests Lindsay is not human. Not human, Master-at-Arms, speaks in hyper-constructed prose, has a notably short fuse . . . he's Lieutenant Worf of Star Trek, the Next Generation.

Krakatoa
Erupted 1883. Wikipedia entry.

Heino Vanderjuice of New Haven
Scientist who designed the Inconvenience's hydrogen engine. "Vanderjuice" suggests both "wonder juice" and "wander juice," fitting since his engine allows the Chums to wander and is wondrous insofar as it apparently violates the second law of thermodynamics. "Heino" (HIE-no) is a man's given name meaning 'home' in German, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, Heino.

Um, a quibble: Vanderjuice is some kind of corrupted Dutch, and in Dutch the name Heino would be pronounced HAY-no. He is not an immigrant, though, and American speakers no doubt say HIGH-no.

Jules Verne influence? Vanderjuice a red herring, pointing to Dutch origin and electrical ("juice") background? Or does one try to parse the name into eg "Fond O' Juice"?

no better than a perpetual-motion machine
A perpetual-motion machine is not just one that runs forever, but one that performs work forever without any input of energy. All PM machines ever invented have been either hoaxes ("free energy source") or mistakes. The hydrogen generator isn't one, which is why the disdainful phrase "no better than" is crucial.

Miles, with his marginal gifts of coördination, and Chick, with a want of alacrity fully as perceptible
Like the old gag: The food in this restaurant isn't any good, but the service is awful.

ratlines and shrouds
Inconvenience is rigged like a sailing ship of the period, though it's hard to see why she needs to be. Shrouds fan out from a masthead down to a rail; ratlines run horizontally to join them. The whole affair serves the sailors as a ladder.

". . . anemometer of the Robinson's type"
Cup anemometer invented in 1846 by Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson. Cup anemometers are still commonly used to measure wind speed because of their simplicity and reliability in a variety of environmental conditions. pic

how rapidly the ship was proceeding
But you can't measure the craft's progress by measuring wind speed at a point on the craft itself. All you get from the anemometer is a speed relative to the air, which is in variable motion. Since the craft is moving at the speed of the wind plus the speed of its propulsion device, the speed found by the anemometor is basically useless.

Page 7

Porfirio Díaz
President of Mexico 1876-1880, 1884-1911. Wikipedia

In most countries, the Interior Ministry (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Home Office, etc.) ran programs like secret police. Are the Chums working for forces of conservativism?

"beside a black-water river of the Deep South".
Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic matter.

a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.

"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"
The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring; the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or, after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865," appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"
The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the Chums'.

absquatulated
Means to move away quickly, usually to avoid capture. Apparently a mock-Latinate formation, "to go off and squat somewhere else." A brief article on the history and etymology of "absquatulate."

"Crackerjack!" exclaimed Chick.
Cracker Jack, the food, was first sold at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, though it did not bear its present name. As one word here, however, it is not the candy: "Crackerjack" entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. The foodstuff gained its present name, according to the official Cracker Jack website, in 1896. The OED lists the first written use of "crackerjack" as 1895, two years after the present scene. It is by no means impossible, however, that the term would have been current in the spoken language in 1893.

to approach the gates of the Penitentiary
A genuine saying. Matthew Quay, a political kingmaker of the 1880s and 90s, said of Benjamin Harrison's squeaker victory over Grover Cleveland in 1888 that Harrison would "never know how many Republicans were compelled to approach the gates of the penitentiary to make him president."

posse comitatus
What Western movie fans know as a "posse." Remember that the Chums author gets paid by the word. There's no reason to think the phrase is linked to the whacko 1980s Posse Comitatus movement.

Page 8

a pocketful of specie
Specie means coins as opposed to paper money.

the town of Thick Bush
Aside from whether this phrase might apply to some political figure of the past or present, "thick bush" is the literal meaning of the Spanish Matagorda, the name of many towns in Latin America and one on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"
Like the Prime Directive in Star Trek. Lindsay's fussy syntax echoes Winston Churchill's exasperated "This is the kind of carping criticism up with which I will not put."

legal customs
Legal = pertaining to law, in this case lynch law. The Chums are interpreting their Prime Directive pretty broadly here.

Katie bar the door
An expression that means that there's trouble brewing. (See this article about the expression's etymology.)

Ku Klux Klan
Reminiscent of the Klan encounter scenes in the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou.

tupelo, cypress, and hickory
The trees are no help in locating the town; all three kinds like bottom land and grow all over the South.

speed . . . made it nearly invisible from the ground
Few people in 1893 had seen a manmade object moving at 60 miles an hour, and many thought such a speed was lethal anyway. The Chums author suggests such an outlandish speed would make Inconvenience just a blur in the sky. Of course you can read the fin numbers on an airliner landing at 150 knots, but he didn't know that.

Pedantry alert: In perfectly transparent air a ship flying a mile off the ground is visible about 125 miles away. If its flight path takes it right over your head, you can follow it for 250 miles. If it is making a groundspeed of 60 miles per hour, it takes 4 hours and change to go from horizon to horizon. In typical "clear" air (visibility say 30 miles), you will see the ship in your sky for a solid hour. These rough figures show how wrong the narrator is about speed.

way better than a mile a minute
The Chums' point of departure is unknown, but they arrived in Chicago after catching a southerly wind (pg 3), southerly meaning "wind blowing from the south." The Chums surpass 60 miles an hour here, but as their previous speed was unknown, it's difficult to know where they were leaving from. (New Orleans to Chicago is 834 miles, slightly less than 14 hours at 60 miles/hour, so a possibility.)

Page 9

locker
On board ship, any cabinet with a door or lid.

"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard Inconvenience you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his book description proclaims the world of AtD as "what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two," this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established.

"Going up is like going north."
Air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore like travelling northward. This page also suggests some further mystery of the Chums may be revealed to Chick and the reader in time.

North is not a positive place in Pynchon's world. It is associated with anti-life---coldness as here---compared to the South, a place of light and warmth, such as the tropics. See GR.

But to go far enough north means heading south again, observes Chick Counterfly--is this one meaning of his name? Then one would be "approaching the surface of another planet, maybe?" asks Chick.

"Not exactly" [answers Randolph] "No. Another 'surface', but an earthly one" "You'll see. In time, of course". Time is earthly?

"Another 'surface'"
In ancient conics the cone is formed by taking a line through a point (the vertex) at a particular angle to a plane and then inscribing a circle on the plane. Two conic surfaces are made by the motion of this line, one below this point and one above. The three conic sections (hyperbola, parabola, and ellipse) are created by slicing the conic surface(s) at different angles.

huh?Bleakhaus 12:38, 15 January 2007 (PST)

If you read this for plain meaning, then it's true (or Randolph believes) that there's another earthly surface, to which you can descend by ascending far enough above this one. Surely it is pertinent here that Pynchon's dear friend Richard Fariña (1937-66) titled his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.

Page 10

Stockyards
Chicago was, at the time, the meat-packing and slaughtering capital of the United States. The stench from the stockyards below must have been memorable.

...looked up at the airship in wonder..."
The sight of any airship in 1893 must have been rare indeed.

Beneath the rubbernecking Chums of Chance wheeled streets and alleyways
Optical illusion. As you fly over a grid of streets, you perceive a landmark far away to move slowly while the lateral streets near you just whip past. Your brain interprets that the same way as hub and spokes, i.e., the motion of a wheel. Interesting question, though: If the Chums author was just making this stuff up, how did he know about the illusion?

Cartesian grid
From Rene Descartes, 17th century philosopher and mathematician; see Wikipedia entry, whose most famous argument, "I think therefore I am" and mathematical studies have often lead him to be seen as the first modern philosopher of ultra-rationality. Geometry has 'the Cartesian coordinant system, a grid. Chicago's streets are laid out in a very rational grid arrangement.

Pynchon is reputed to have written 'Gravity's Rainbow' on engineer's grid paper.

In modern mathematics, curves are described only in relation to the two dimensional grid (see previous page). If conic sections are not specifically being thought of here, the theme of dimensionality, at least, is already at play.

that unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in straight lines
Rationalization is a key sociological concept [from online Dictionary of Social Science]:RATIONALIZATION This term has two specific meanings in sociology. (1) The concept was developed by German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) who used it in two ways. First, it was the process through which magical, supernatural and religious ideas lose cultural importance in a society and ideas based on science and practical calculation become dominant. For example, in modern societies science has rationalized our understanding of weather patterns. Science explains weather patterns as a result of interaction between physical elements like wind-speed and direction, air and water temperatures, humidity, etc. In some other cultures, weather is thought to express the pleasure or displeasure of gods, or spirits of ancestors. One explanation is rationalized and scientific, the other mysterious and magical. Rationalization also involves the development of forms of social organization devoted to the achievement of precise goals by efficient means. It is this type of rationalization that we see in the development of modern business corporations and of bureaucracy. These are organizations dedicated to the pursuit of defined goals by calculated, systematically administered means. (2) Within symbolic interactionism, rationalization is used more in the everyday sense of the word to refer to providing justifications or excuses for one's actions.

"only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor."
From innocent bovines to ...the world? "Single up all lines".... Stockyards were organized in such a way that the cattle would procede through a series of chutes and passages, until they arrived alone at the point of death.

"Progressive reduction of choices" also occurred in Mason & Dixon—there were infinitely many wildernesses out to the west until M&D ran the line and rationalized the country into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Page 11

plummet
In the real world, this might be bad physics, as closing the valve wouldn't slow the descent. Objects in a fluid medium like air float if their weight is less than the weight of the fluid they displace (hence why one fills a balloon with a light gas such as hydrogen or helium). Once the Inconvenience loses its buoyancy, it will continue to fall, unless its weight is reduced to what a lesser amount of hydrogen could support. The Inconvenience, however, has a hydrogen producing apparatus that could kick in, slow, and eventually stop their descent.

bear a hand
Nautical: help out.

Page 12

Liverpool Kiss
A head butt.

Herr Riemann
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866) (pronounced REE mahn or in IPA: ['ri:man]) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them paving the way for the later development of general relativity. Wikipedia entry.

Mr. Noseworth
Lindsay insisting on proper naval forms: an ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant or lieutenant commander in the U.S. navy is correctly addressed as "Mister Surname."

"topological genius"
Riemann's differential geometry goes beyond the Cartesian grid. See conic sections and dimensionality above, page 10.

Page 13

There was an "eager stampede" to the rail
Why is eager stampede in quotation marks? The sentence reads fine without it. Does it seem to show ironic knowingness on the part of the narrator? If so, why and who is the narrator?

I suspect this is a stylistic device from the turn of the century light literature that Pynchon is emulating-- placing a novel term in quotation marks. Bleakhaus 01:35, 23 December 2006 (PST)

insightfully true, I suspect, but it still shows 'narratorial knowingness', yes?

Cf. Flaubert's use of quotations in Madame Bovary to isolate what he deemed the contemptible argot of the bourgeoisie.

Apparently not a cliche: GoogleBooks

"...among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags..."
Recalls the opening line of Mason & Dixon: "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr‘d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..."

"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."
This is strikingly reminiscent of Odilon Redon's 1882 Lithograph L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity). At MoMa's Online Collection Notice that society = censure, if constructive. Gamboling nude on a summer day was OK until the Inconvenience, as eyeball, appeared.

The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

Page 14

Jacob's-ladder
Used here as "a marine ladder of rope or chain with wooden or iron rungs" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) but is suggestive of Jacob's ladder in Genesis:

Genesis 28:12 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (King James version)

vol-à-voile
The narrator has turned the French phrase vol-à-voiles (gliding) into a verb (removing the s).

gold-beaters' skin
Very thin vellum (membrane taken from the caecum or blind stomach of an ox). To prepare gold for gilding, it was placed between sheets of vellum and hammered thin.

Evening Quarters
Naval practice of mustering the crew at the end of the day's work.

Page 15

ukulelist
Ukuleles also appear in Gravity's Rainbow, Vineland, and Mason & Dixon. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukulele in college.

Macassar Oil. An Oily Puff for Soft Heads

Beaufort Scale

A scale for measuring wind strength, developed 1805.

"...forty-four buttons...one for each State of the Union."
Wyoming was the 44th state admitted to the union in 1890.

port section of the crew
The half of the crew permitted to go freely ashore this time. The other half tomorrow. "Port" and "starboard": are these simply either/or words that sailors remember easily?

Macassar oil
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. Wikipedia entry

Page 16

About the fringes,' Randolph reminded the liberty-goers, 'of any gathering on the scale of this Exposition, are apt to lurk vicious and debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary.
Indeed, the Chicago World's Fair was haunted by one of America's more prolific and original serial killers, H.H. Holmes. Born in 1861, Holmes came to Chicago as a pharmacist and built an office building that was eventually dubbed 'The Castle'. Consisting of commercial stores on the first floor, and offices and apartments on the upper floors, the building also housed hidden rooms where Holmes murdered his victims, chutes that conveyed the bodies to the basement, and a chamber of horrors in the basement where he destroyed the corpses. Holmes took advantage of the World's Columbian Exposition to lure victims, primarily females who had come unaccompanied to Chicago, to the Castle for torture and murder. It is estimated that he killed over 200 people at the Castle while the Exposition was in operation. Two very good books about Holmes are The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and Depraved by Harold Schechter. It is doubtful that Pynchon was thinking explicitly of Holmes when he wrote this passage, although he must be aware of the story. Randolph could not have known about Holmes since Holmes was not captured until after the Fair was over. Wikipedia entry

tension of the gas
I.e., the pressure in the bag.

Page 17

"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay turned and done"
The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just words on a page...as is this book, ATD?...Again a Pynchonian theme: no book is the reality.

"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again."
Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like for Darby, or is it also self-referential to all the adventures of the Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible presence from whom the chums get their orders? Cf. earthly surface, p.9

Chinese foofooraw
Also spelled foofaraw, a great deal of fuss, or useless frills. Cf folderol. However, why Chinese?

Chick's father tried to sell Mississippi to a Chinese syndicate.

cubeb
The name for the berry and for the oil obtained from the unripe berry of the East Indian climbing shrub P. cubeba. The dried fruits are sometimes used as a condiment or are ground and smoked in cigarette form as an herbal remedy. The Free Dictionary Also appears in Gravity's Rainbow, page 118.

"...goldurn Keeley Cure"
A treatment for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addiction involving injections of "bichloride" or "double chloride" of gold, and also known as the "gold cure". Named for Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, who opened the first of many Keeley Institutes in Dwight, Illinois, not far from Chicago, in 1879.

Page 18

headgear
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [notes]

eclipse green
Apparently an actual shade. [cite]

Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

("Penny") Black
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [Wikipedia]

Tzigane
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [Wikipedia]

Egypt
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. Named so because it has a considerable river delta and a metropolis called Cairo (KAY-roe). The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [Wikipedia]

Page 19

Garçons de 71
A group of aeronauts formed in Paris during the Siege and Commune of Paris.

pétroleurs de Paris
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

Page 22

Kodaks
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

Isandhlwana
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed, [Wikipedia]

Page 23

Tarahumara
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. About the Tarahumara. [Wikipedia]

monte
Three-card monte.

Page 24

the curse of Scotland
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [Wikipedia]

like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On page 4, Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

Cracker Jack
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [Wikipedia]

New Levee district
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [cite]

Epworth League
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [cite]

Page 25

Haymarket bomb
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. Wikipedia entry.

if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

mixture of contempt and pity
This is definitely not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

duck soup
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

References

↑ Lambiek Comiclopedia

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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