Difference between revisions of "ATD 97-118"

Revision as of 13:36, 30 March 2007

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

Page 97

the iron of their shoes . . . seeking the magnetic memory of that long-ago visit
Familiar cartoon gag, a horseshoe magnet attracting all sorts of hardware as it flies through the air.

the Rebellion
What the North called the Civil War. Another reference...

Tesla, Dr. Nikola (1856-1943)
Tesla was a Serb-American inventor, engineer and physicist whose patents and theoretical work form the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, radio, and a bunch of other stuff. Wikipedia entry Tesla researched in Colorado Springs from May 1899 - January 1900, a location he chose because of the frequent thunderstorms, the high altitude, and the dryness of the air. Wikipedia on Tesla at Colorado Springs.

Much of the the funding for his Colorado Springs laboratory came from Colonel John Jacob Astor. Tesla's friend and patent lawyer, Leonard E. Curtis, persuaded the El Paso Power Company to supply Tesla with all the electricity he wanted, free of charge. The arrangement ended the night Tesla's activities burned out the dynamo and the entire city lost power. PBS: Tesla - Master of Lightning

"Tesla logged in his diary on July 3, 1899 that a separate resonance transformer tuned to the same high frequency as a larger high-voltage resonance transformer would transceive energy from the larger coil, acting as a transmitter of wireless energy, which was used to confirm Tesla's patent for radio during later disputes in the courts. These air core high-frequency resonate coils were the predecessors of systems from radio to radar and medical magnetic resonance imaging devices." [1] This information was later used to confirm his patent for radio which he received posthumously in 1946, 3 years after his death. [2].

Pynchon confuses this 03 July 'vision', during a natural electrical storm, with later experimental generation of high voltages.

The Tesla Society confusingly describes Tesla as a "Serbian-born American" but states his birthplace as Smiljan, Croatia.

Vectorist . . . by way of the Electricity
Vector symbolism offers an economical way to describe electrical processes; electrical engineers still use vector algebra and vector analysis combined with concepts from complex number theory.

Page 98

a turbine generator located underneath a waterfall
Not sitting there to catch the falling water. A waterfall is a convenient place for a power plant because you can get easy access to two elevations: take in water at the top, install your turbine at the bottom. The mention of penstocks and other plumbing farther down the page confirms that the flow is being captured in pipes at the head of the fall and run through a turbine at the bottom.

engineering students... from Cornell, Yale
Cornell is Pynchon's alma mater, where he initially studied engineering. Pynchon bio

Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist among the pioneers of electromagnetism. Pynchon made use of his theoretical "Maxwell's Demon" in The Crying of Lot 49. Wikipedia entry

Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism of 1873
Full text of Volume 1 and Volume 2 at the Internet Archive.

Page 99

the Invisible
Up to this point there have been many mentions of things invisible, here capitalized. Recalling Blundell's quote from p. 24, suddenly everything connects and makes sense to Kit after his revelation. It is a mystical experience for him as he reaches this knowledge through something like a voice telling him.

So is altitude transformed, continuously, to light
The potential energy of water at an altitude is realized when it falls, producing the flow of electricity required for the production of artificial light.

Hamilton had experienced at Brougham Bridge in Ireland
William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made important contributions to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra. His discovery of quaternions is perhaps his best known investigation. The discovery of quaternions reportedly occurred during a walk with his wife by the Royal Canal in Dublin. Upon having the inspiration for the formula, he promptly carved it into the side of the nearby Broom (or Brougham) Bridge. Wikipedia entry

a jump from one place to another
An allusion to quantum jump (or quantum leap), which would be proposed some years later as a model for the electron's transition between energy states within an atom and as the sole cause of the emission of electromagnetic radiation, including that of light, by atoms. Interestingly enough, the term "quantum leap" would later become a standard vernacular term to describe abrupt advances. Wikipedia entry

with . . . what perilous æther opening between and beneath
The etymology of air includes æther. The gap between initial and final states is a region where there's nothing to "support" the particle making the quantum jump.

the truth he now possessed in his personal interior, certain and unshakable
Kit's belief in Vectorism is solidified.
Not belief. He's broken through to a state where he doesn't have to write the math down—he sees directly from problem statement to solution.

Jack, we're seventeen
Around 1900.

Pike's Peak or Bust!
The slogan of miners heading to Colorado during the Gold Rush of 1859.

Frank got so nervous about climbing
Is Frank acrophobic?

Cañon City alumnus
An ex-convict who has done time in the Colorado pen.

swamping
Menial work.

Page 100

Lieutenants of Industry Scholarship Program
The metaphor "Captain of Industry" gets dusted off; Vibe is the captain, so his minions can't go any higher than lieutenants.

Mr. Merriwell, we really need this touchdown
An allusion to the fictional character Frank Merriwell, an adventuresome student at Yale and football hero, he was created by the pulp fiction writer Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pen name Burt L. Standish. The first story, "Frank Merriwell: or, First Days at Fardale" appeared in Tip Top Weekly on April 18, 1896. Merriwell went on to appear in comic books, radio programs, and dime novels. As the passage suggests, Merriwell constituted an idealized picture of the east coast, old money elite. Wikipedia Entry on Frank Merriwell

Yale
This possible deal with the devil that Kit makes to get into Yale recalls the evil pact made to get Tyrone Slothrop into Harvard in Gravity's Rainbow.

Horsefeathers
The title of a 1932 Marx Brothers film ("Horse Feathers"). Another possible indication for the promised Groucho Marx cameo. See also "ducksoup" (p.25)

Antietam
The first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil, in 1862. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with almost 23,000 casualties.

substitute conscriptee
The Enrollment Act of 1863 allowed draftees to pay $300 to a substitute who would serve for them. (See here for an example substitution form.) J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, James Mellon and future president Grover Cleveland all hired substitutes. Within a year the price had gone up to $1,100, however. Civil War Draft Records: Exemptions and Enrollments

Page 101

Cold Harbor
There were two battles of Cold Harbor: the first, in 1862, predated Antietam, so this would have been the second in 1864 0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cold_Harbor Wikipedia].

the Brain and its Mysteries
This is a recurring theme, with suggestions of neurological symptoms already seen, such as Miles Blondell's weird feelings and Lew Basnight's malady. As seen below, the presence of the bullet has some effects on his brain: he receives "communications, from far, far away," which can be symptoms of brain injuries.

Minié ball
Prior to the development of the minie ball, rifles were not used in combat due to the difficulty in loading. The ammunition used by rifles was the same diameter as the barrel in order for the bullet to engage the groves of the rifled barrel. As a result the ball had to be forced into the barrel. The minie ball, originally designed by Captain Claude-Etienne Minie of France and improved on by manufacturers in the United States, changed warfare. Since the minie ball was smaller than the diameter of the barrel, it could be loaded quickly by dropping the bullet down the barrel. This conical lead bullet had two or three grooves and a conical cavity in its base. The gases, formed by the burning of powder once the firearm was fired, expanded the base of the bullet so that it engaged the rifling in the barrel. Thus, rifles could be loaded quickly and yet fired accurately; 620; From the Smithsonian website

However, Minié balls are relatively large, generally .58 caliber, so that would be a mighty large piece of lead lodged in his brain. Picture

"far, far away"
A nod to the opening lines of Star Wars? “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."
A similar episode is in Richard Powers' "Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance" (1985), in which a character affirms that he can get military radio communications thanks to a dental filling. Richard Powers has often been compared to Pynchon.

physical well-being
The dichotomy of bodily and spiritual well-being appears in the The World is at Fault letter that Pynchon wrote in the early 60s.

"if it exists"
Assuming this is c1882, when the Standard Oil Trust was formed, it was already well-known.

Page 102

ten gallons of coffee
Major caffeine abuse also figured in to Mason & Dixon.

Twin Vibes
Vibe and Walker work together in part because of Walker's "powers". These "vibrations" could be the source of the name Vibe.

With that kind of personal faith . . . handling snakes
Wikipedia says snake-handling did not become a movement until the 1920s but was a sensational practice before the end of the 19th century. The requisite "personal faith" is defined in Mark 16:17-18: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name . . . [t]hey shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Southern Appalachia is now the epicenter of snake-handling.

"Izvinite... Hvala"
'Excuse me'... 'Thank you' in Croatian. [cite] Also in Serbian, though written in a different alphabet.

Page 103

por vida
For life.

a message from perhaps farther beyond...
Kit may think it another message from the Invisible. Due to his belief in Vectorism?

how Mr. Vibe . . . had been left free to behave
The mission given to Walker is to constrain Vibe, who in some sense shares a "karma" with him.

Page 104

"Tithing," Tesla said, "giving back to the day."
Tesla's contempt for this tithing positions him as—wait for it—against the day.

Page 105

Jake with me
Fine with me.

"not here on the desolate lee shore whose back country is death"
Wonderful, just wonderful...

Page 107

Since this is 1899, the Chums should be six years older than they were in Chicago.

this era of desuetude
Time when usual rules and customs are not being practiced.

midwatch
The time between midnight and 4 a.m. Another naval practice observed by the Chums.

A boy . . . under a baggy cap with its bill turned sidewise
I can't identify this as to title or date, but the subject appeared in lithographs that hung in many homes in the first half of the 20th century.

Tesla device
A radio. He received a patent for the radio after his death. The transmissions of July 3, 1899 (see Page 97, above) were used as evidence that he should be granted the patent.

A member of the wiki has pointed out that Tesla recorded thunderstorm observations on that date but did not carry out transmissions.

voices . . . difficult to credit with any origin in the material sphere . . . hoarse whispering
Messages coming from a world the Chums don't inhabit? From outside their novel, I suggest, specifically from their author, who is preparing to take over the narration again.

Indian Ocean islands of Amsterdam and St.Paul
As noted in the text, Indian Ocean Islands. Both are volcanic in origin. They remain without permanent residents. Wikipedia article on St. Paul Island

westerlies
A westerly is a wind that is coming from the west, not heading toward the west. The Chums must therefore have been somewhere in Europe, Africa or Central Asia at the time.

Page 108

islets vanished from the nautical charts
Do features really vanish from charts? Could it be that their names were no longer recorded?

It is possible that some small islands collapse or are eroded, and disappear below the sea, to "rejoin the Invisible".

St. Masque
This island's name may have been one of the ones to vanish.

huge underground construction
The description calls to mind Boston's "Big Dig," or a bunker such as those built by the SAC or other military organizations.

Megaera
One of the Greek Furies. [Wikipedia]

Apparently a real shipwreck as well. [Scroll down to St. Paul Island]

four hundred of us made it
The informative page linked in the preceding entry is pretty clear: 330-odd of them made it.

"Curious," Chick said.
His register of speech is very different from what we heard in earlier episodes.

Page 109

the volcano
Not Krakatoa. The Chums are in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

antipodal to Colorado Springs
Amsterdam and St. Paul are, to within a few dozen miles, exactly on the opposite side of the Earth to the Springs. Because Tesla's work there wound up early in 1900, the antipodal point could not have held much interest after that. The 1899 dating holds.

Chums of Chance Logistical Services
In the whole series of novels this is probably the only mention of CoCLS. All the other books had instruments, weapons, etc., just appear without explanation. "Never questioned, always on time" simply because it's written (or unwritten) that way.

mephitically seeping volcano
"Mephitic" means foul-smelling.

President McKinley
Since McKinley was assassinated (by an anarchist) in September, 1901, this situates the episode some time between 1899 and 1901.

a beach so intensely sunlit as to appear almost colorless
Again an excess of light takes away from the ambience rather than adding to it.

blindness at the heart of a diamond
This enigmatic imagery is reflected (no pun intended) in a few references: more

"where the light came down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond. " (Anne of Green Gables, Chapt. 15, by Lucy Maud Montgomery)

"It was a singularly sharp night, and clear as the heart of a diamond." A Story that is Untrue by Ambrose Bierce

blindness seems not to be a positive with this metaphor. No light, a heart that cannot see. Diamonds = lightlessness.

Since his (Darby's) voice had changed
In three-quarters of a century Tom Swift didn't age half a dozen years. The Chums could not have aged much before AtD opened, because they weren't very old to begin with. Now the mascotte who sang the treble parts has become an adolescent.

Page 110

The once cheery mascotte... into a distrust of authority
In this section Darby Suckling looks to be the "punk" of the Chums ala Darby Crash. Wikipedia

Nihilism
Nihilism comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing. It appears in the verb "annihilate", meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. Nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons (1862) popularized nihilism by his character Bazarov who preached a creed of total negation. In Russia, nihilism became identified with a loosely organized revolutionary movement (1860-1917) that rejected the authority of the state, church, and family. The movement advocated a social arrangement based on rationalism and materialism as the sole source of knowledge, and individual freedom as the highest goal. The movement eventually deteriorated into an ethos of subversion, destruction, and anarchy. And by the late 1870s, a nihilist was anyone associated with clandestine political groups advocating terrorism and assassination. (Nihilism).

Platonic polyhedra
In the Timaeus of Plato, the eponymous character claims, in what he calls his "likely story," that the cosmos was created by the gathering of triangles into regular solids which coincide with the four elements: the pyramid (fire), cube (earth), octahedron (air), icosahedron (water), and dodecahedron. The dodecahedron becomes associated with Æther.

Clarendons
Clarendon is a serif typeface created in 1845 that was often used for wanted posters in the Old West. Wikipedia entry, with a sample

FUNDAMENT-SEIZING
Ass-grabbing.

"Zumbledy bongbong," [Miles Blundell] called encouragingly, as the food flew. "Vamble, Vamble!"
Miles's odd speech may be an allusion to that of the Muppets' Swedish Chef.

He may also be speaking in tongues, or simply have some sort of apraxia of speech, given these comments and those on the following page.

Page 111

unmix a failed sauce
There is a folk belief, however, that mayonnaise and other egg-based sauces will separate during a thunderstorm. You can, however, re-mix sauces of this kind that have de-emulsified.

time is intrinsic in every recipe
Not whether you bake the pie for 20 minutes or 40. What's intrinsic is that the recipe always takes you forward in time. Start with ground meat, end with a hamburger, never the other way around.

dog's dinner
Something that is ostentatiously smart Definition.

In the U.S.A., it was almost the Fourth of July
Inconvenience is a day ahead of the U.S., being well west of the International Date Line.

noteworthy episodes of military explosion . . . necessary to maintain the integrity of the American homeland
Put the stress on military. Other explosions achieve different purposes.

Haymarket bomb . . . wonders of chemistry
Cf. p. 79, "the widely admired Mexican principle of politics through chemistry."

Page 112

"the nature of the skyrocket's ascent"
Chumps of Choice blog suggests that this refers to Gravity's Rainbow.

"Think, bloviators, think!"
To bloviate means to speak or write at length in a pompous or boastful manner. CoC blog suggests that this, coupled with the verbose allusion to Gravity's Rainbow above, is Pynchon's message to jargony commentators of his work, presumably in academia.

Presumably, us as well

President McKinley . . . naked woman . . . National Bird . . . something to eat . . . one of the Platonic polyhedra . . . draped female personage
It is hard to see how the final figurehead choice is a "compromise" among these candidates.

Page 113

X.O.
In many militaries' units, the executive officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the commanding officer (CO).

"contamination by the secular"
Secular can be defined as "denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis." As the Chums have so far not been overtly religious, perhaps they mean secular in the spiritual sense?

Secular also means "worldly", as in, that which the Chums of Chance are literally above: 113: "That sort of bickering may be for ground people, but it is not for us."

Gloymbroognitz thidfusp
Odd. Sounds like something from Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but isn't. Anyone? Famous, surreal Polish writer of the 20th Century, Gombrowitz, Wittold

Surabaya
Today in Indonesia. Wikipedia entry

Page 114

Nernst lamps
An early incandescent lamp invented by Hermann Nernst (1864-1941), which made use of a heated ceramic rod to produce light in ambient air (in contrast to Edison's incandescent, which required a vacuum to operate).

Dr. Mikimoto (Kokichi)
Produced the first cultured pearl in 1893 in Toba, Japan. As he left school at 13 to help support his family, any Doctorate he may have obtained must have been honorary.

And the Japanese:

Through a highly secret technical process, developed in Japan at around the same time Dr. Mikimoto was producing his first cultured pearls, portions of the original aragonite — which made up the nacreous layers of the pearl — had, through “induced paramorphism,” as it was known to the artful sons of Nippon, been selectively changed here and there to a different form of calcium carbonate — namely, to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar.

And remember that Baz Zaharoff, on page 906, is headed to Japan because:

"it’s they who want to sell him something, you see. Everyone’s being ever so dark about it. The item doesn’t even have a name anyone agrees on, except for a Q in it somewhere I think. Something they came into possession of a few years ago and now have up for sale on most attractive terms, almost as if..."

More about the Q-weapon on p. 1037...

Iceland Spar
See this handy "About Geology" page [3], with an illustration demonstrating a spar's double-refraction effect on printed letters--remarkably like that on the cover of ATD! This kind of calcite has rhombohedral cleavage, because each of its faces is a rhombus, a warped rectangle in which none of the corners are square. A "spar" would be not the whole calcite crystal, but a cleavage fragment. Is each of the rectangular pages of ATD then a warped cleavage from some sort of crystalline whole, refracting its text in several directions at once? Of course, to the Chums the text message they receive from Upper Hierarchy has but one simple meaning. "Paramorphism" = the structural alteration of a mineral without any change in its chemical composition.

the limitless mischief of pearls
A book's worth of superstitions exist around pearls. Pearls bring tears. The bride must wear pearls. The bride who wears pearls will be unhappy. If your pearl loses its luster, you are about to die. A pearl dissolved in wine is a poison. A pearl dissolved in wine is a love potion.

get up buoyancy
A surface ship "gets up steam" in preparation for departure. Another naval or nautical analog.

Etienne-Louis Malus
1775-1812, a French officer and mathematician whose work was predominantly concerned with light. He studied ray systems, and his theory on polarisation was published in 1809. His theory of the double refraction of light in crystals was published in 1810. Wikipedia
Malus is also the genus of the apple. Malus is best known for his law describing intensity of light as it passes through polarized materials. There are delicious metaphorical implications for any reader of a Pynchon novel.

pearls
Probably meant to contrast the "blindness at the heart of a diamond" referred to on p. 109. Pynchon may want to call to mind The Scarlet Letter, in which Pearl, the child produced by the union of the protagonist, Hester Prynne, and the Rev. Dimsdale, becomes a symbol of beauty derived from sin (there, and likely here, represented by the grain of sand around which the pearl forms).

Dr. Alden Vormance
" Vormance's surname may be meant to combine "Romance" and "worm," calling to mind the Romantic exuberance that motivated 19th century exploratory expeditions as well as the serpent of the Biblical expulsion story.
Another Pynchonian "V" name and we know what Pynchon thinks of "Romantic exuberance". See GR, at least. And a remark in ATD [to find].
Alternatively, Vormance may be a conflation of the German prefix vor- (meaning "forward") with the -mancy combining form (e.g. necromancy) meaning prophecy--Gobbag 12:38, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Page 115

(Johannes) Kepler
(1571-1630), mathematician best known for his laws of planetary motion, one of the foundations of Isaac Newton's theory of gravity. Wikipedia

Edmond Halley
1656-1742, Halley was an English physical scientist most remembered for the comet he which he predicted would return. In 1692 he proposed that the earth was hollow. In 1698 he departed on a two year voyage as captain of the HMS Paramore in order to measure variations in the Earth's magnetic field. In 1716 he suggested timing the transit of Venus to determine the distance between the earth and the sun.

(Leonhard) Euler
The method of traverse (pun ignored) by which the Chums proceed became known as a Symmes' Hole after John Cleeves Symmes who, in 1818 circulated a pamphlet arguing for the existence of such holes in the polar regions and further volunteered to lead an expedition to said regions.

Symmes' following lecture tours were further carried forth by one J.N. Reynolds. "[Edgar Allen] Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred." Edgar Allen Poe's first published short story, "Ms. Found in a Bottle" (1833) took, as its premise, the existence of Symmes' Holes: theoretical holes in the polar areas which led to a hollow interior.

Research has its charms, but so does mindless surfing. This blog presents a map of the Earth inside the Earth, complete with Shambhala. The layout unfortunately doesn't fit the AtD account, but it's quite funny.

Page 116

vatic
Prophetic. [def]

the ship's nitro-lycopodium engines
Inconvenience has gone through a major refit, apparently: no more hydrogen power. Lycopodium consists of spores from a club moss, usually Lycopodium clavatum. It is a highly flammable yellowish powder. Photographers used it for flash illumination. In principle, an internal combustion engine can run on a powdered fuel, though difficulties abound in practice. The "nitro" part is a puzzle; nitromethane (called "nitro" or, in drag racing, simply "fuel") seems the most obvious reference. Do the ship's engines use a slurry of lycopodium in nitromethane? That would be a tricky fuel to handle.
I don't think "nitro" refers to a particular, separate substance. The prefix nitro- indicates a substance whose molecules have the group NO2 attached to them. The oxygen in this group is easily released, with the result that nitro-compounds usually burn very rapidly and intensely, effectively having their own internal oxygen supply. Strictly the prefix should be applied to well defined molecular species such as nitromethane, nitrobenzene, etc, etc. However it is also used for complex biological substances treated with a nitrating agent such as nitric acid: nitrocotton (gun cotton) is a common example. Pynchon has probably invented nitro-lycopodium as a plausible though non-existent propellant, in the fashion we're accustomed to seeing with him.--Gobbag 06:57, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Page 117

royal court of Chthonica
The adjective chthonic means "of the earth" or "of the underworld" and is often used to refer to the gods and other entities residing under the surface of the earth. The adjective is used creatively, and most famously, in the fictional works of H.P. Lovecraft ... a chief deity of his ficitional universe being Cthulhu.

Plutonia
"Plutonia" is the title of a novel written by Russian geologist "Vladimir Obruchev", published in 1915. According to "here", it's a hollow-earth story.

The "Plutonist" movement, as opposed to the "Neptunist", was quite in vogue in the late 1800s, being a theory of geography which held that the interior heat of the earth was somehow responsible for various geological processes.

Tunbridge Wells
"Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" is an archetypal figure of conservative England whose correspondence can be found frequently in newspapers railing at the latest outrages of modernity. Tunbridge Wells briefly features in Gravity's Rainbow.

On whether this and the subterranean adventure may allude to Gravity's Rainbow, see Discussion.

my harmless little intraterrestrial scherzo
Once again, the unseen narrator appears. By inference, the narrator is also the author of the various Chums of Chance... books referenced in ATD. This episode's also a little inter-textual scherzo: Poe (Arthur Gordon Pym), Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Pelucidar, Star Trek, Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth... and Jeremiah Dixon's own underground journey in M&D. Doesn't Chick Counterfly sound rather Spockian here (cf. 115, bottom)?

Annotation Index