Difference between revisions of "ATD 97-118"

Revision as of 21:24, 10 January 2007

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

Page 97

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.

Page 98

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

"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

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

Page 100

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
1862.

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

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

"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.

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

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

"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.

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.

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

Page 108

Megaera
One of the Greek Furies. [Wikipedia]

Page 109

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

"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.

Page 110

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

"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.

Page 111

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

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?

Gloymbroognitz thidfusp
?

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.

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.

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.

Page 115

Kepler

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.

Page 116

vatic
Prophetic. [def]

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
As above, a reference to the underworld and its inherent connotations of underground voyage, from the Aeneid to Christ to Dante to Tarzan, et al. 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.

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