Difference between revisions of "ATD 644-677"

Revision as of 14:03, 11 January 2007

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

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Page 644

E.B. Soltera
Soltera is Spanish: spinster. Estrella Briggs, Unmarried.

Regeneration Equipment
In chemical technology "regeneration" means taking a spent product out of the system and cleaning it up for reuse.

Page 645

E.P.T.
El Paso, Texas.

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Page 647

For really it was the sidekick who presented the problem. Restless type. Fair hair, hat back on his head so the big brim sort of haloed his face, shiny eyes and low-set, pointed ears like an elf's...

Who is this? Some sort of strange tommyknocker, mine-sprite, or brownie? Or an oblique reference to a named character whose identity I can't discern? remy 10:52, 28 December 2006 (PST)

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Page 649

Rosie's Cantina
As found in Marty Robbins's 1959 hit song "El Paso" (a song frequently covered by the Grateful Dead). When the exiled narrator attempts to return to the cantina, he sees to his right "five mounted cowboys/Off to my left ride a dozen or more."

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Page 652

Karawankenbahn . . . Tauern . . . Wochein
A series of tunnels constructed as part of a huge Austrian public works project in the first years of the 20th century. They are named for ranges of mountains and hills they pass through. The objective was to develop rail transport to the port of Trieste. It's possible the Wochein tunnel is now in Italy under another name.

Brigue
Also spelled Brig.

Page 653

League of Prizren
Aimed for Albanian unity and autonomy; 1878; Wikipedia article.

many superstitions inside this mountain
Tunnelers and miners were among the most superstitious trades. Small wonder.

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Page 655

[S]ometimes a Tatzelwurm is only a Tatzelwurm.
Echoing the comment attributed to Freud, the cigar-loving alienist who would have been on the faculty of the University of Vienna at this time.

Page 656

favogn
Also known as a föhn, a dry wind blowing up the lee side of the Alps.

balneomaniacs
People avid for mineral baths and spas like those at . . .

Baden-Baden . . . Wagga Wagga
In Germany and New South Wales (Australia) respectively.

Moazagotl clouds
A persistent cloud formation associated with the föhn. Technical definition.

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Page 658

Tatzelwurm
Cryptozoologists also use the term "Swiss dragon" for this mythical Alpine beast. Its habitation is not said to be limited to mines and tunnels. Mostly uninformative Wikipedia entry.

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Page 666

Reader, she bit him.
Reef has failed, both literally and figuratively, to screw the pooch. (and, of course, a parody of the opening sentence of the final chapter of "Jane Eyre")

Page 667

avantyuristka
Unfortunate placement of the hyphen makes it look as if it's avant- something, but it's a single Russian word, авантюристка, meaning "adventuress."

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As light began to steep in...

Like on page 566, this dream-passage seems to contain a top-down examination of Kit's progress; of his motives and awareness of complicity in the Traverse vengeance-quest against the Vibes. Similar to Kit's earlier dream(s?), it's a thematic reduction and feels like a significant 'clue':

As light began to steep in around the edges of the window blinds, Kit fell asleep again and dreamed of a bullet en route to the heart of an enemy, traveling for many years and many miles, hitting something now and then and ricocheting off at a different angle but continuing its journey as if conscious of where it must go, and he understood that this zigzagging around through four-dimensional space-time might be expressed as a vector in five dimensions. Whatever the number of n dimensions it inhabited, an observer would need one extra, n + 1, to see it and connect the end points to make a single result.

In addition to the broad narrative summary, there appears to be a metatextual implication here. Regarding the reader in Pynchon's overall 'Against The Day' scheme: the novel n must be observed from an n +1 perspective (that is: dimensionally distinct) to connect end-points and weave a single result, to engage and correlate strands and twines into a coherent narrative whole. Without an overarching consciousness there's apparent anarchy: with said consciousness there's meaning and vector.

remy 10:52, 28 December 2006 (PST)

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