Difference between revisions of "ATD 919-945"

Revision as of 14:39, 24 January 2007

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

Page 919

the recent battle
Battle of Casas Grandes, March 5, 1911; the action begins a few days later.

novio
Spanish: boyfriend.

Page 920

¿qué tal, amigo?
Spanish: What's up, my friend?

brujo
Spanish: wizard.

¿verdad?
Spanish: don't you?

José de la Luz Blanco
Colonel, later general, in Madero's revolutionary forces.

mucho gusto
Spanish: pleased to meet you.

Page 921

Adiós, mi guapo
Spanish: goodbye, lover.

Page 922

laudanum, paregoric
Laudanum is an alcoholic tincture of opium; paregoric, a camphorated tincture of opium.

Bloody Shirt
Waving the bloody shirt, as a political tactic, dates back at least 1300 years. The demagogue compels listeners to a desired action by citing a wrong they cannot ignore or forgive.

Bolsón de Mapimí
See p.395

Page 923

...the mysterious ruins thought to have been built by refugees fleeing from their mythical homeland of Aztlan up north.
An interesting anacronism here. From this website, we learn that

At first, because of its Pueblo-like architecture, Paquime [aka Casas Grandes] had been regarded as a sort of southern extension of the ancient Pueblo world. But Charles Di Peso's excavations in the 1950's raised a "storm of controversy," revealing pyramid platforms mounds, ball-courts, and macaw breeding pens, leading him to conclude that what he had found was a major Mesoamerican "Gateway City," a 14th century urban trading center from whence Mesoamerican prestige items (macaw feathers, marine shells, copper bells) were exported to the American Southwest, bringing "higher" Mesoamerican culture with them.

So it seems that at the time Wren Provenance would have been part of a "semi-official" Harvard dig at Casas Grandes, the original inhabitants wouldn't have been considered to be from Aztlan, unless they are (gasp!) Trespassers/visitors from the future. And on page 930, this is supported.

Also, Pynchon seems to subscribe here to the theory that the actual geographical location of Aztlan was somewhere in what is now the southwestern United States. He refers to Aztlan being "up north" of Casas Grandes. This theory, held by some, seems to contradict a well-established consensus among scholars that these areas were inhabited by North American Indians who, as opposed to Aztecs, left enough artifacts in these areas to document their existence there, and that Aztlan would have been closer to Central Mexico.

Page 924

tetas de muñeca
Spanish: doll-tits.

pinga de títere
Spanish: puppet-pecker.

Frank found himself in a strange yet familiar City [...] nobody but the most senior Astrologers even being allowed to view the sky.
An amazing sentence, perhaps the longest in the novel (more than a page in length), reminiscent of the opening dream sequence or that evensong service in Gravity's Rainbow — a hallucinogenic cinematic pan. Awesome!

Page 925

swamp-beaver hides
The nutria (called so in North America, coypu elsewhere) has the nickname swamp beaver.

Hallucinati
Play on Illuminati, the Illuminated Ones, but the Hallucinati are lit by indigenous cacti and such.

paseo time
Spanish: time for strolling.

pamphlets
These bear some similarity to the infamous "Tijuana Bibles" of the 20th century.

heliographs
The annotation to page 851 defines the machine used for communication; here "heliograph" is an image produced by the action of sunlight. See this remarkable page titled "The First Photograph."

Page 926

Page 927

Page 928

Page 929

Page 930

"The professors she works for return in September to the other side..."
Aha, no wonder these professors "under semi-office Harvard auspices" know about the Casas Grandes/Aztlan connection which arose in the 1950s, but they're digging in the summer of 1911! They're from "the other side" — visitors/Trespassers from the future!

Page 931

profitable weeks
Because they are using Yashmeen's roulette system; see pages 862-3 and annotations.

Biarritz
Coastal city in France, on the shore of the Bay of Biscay.

Pau
Inland city in France, east of Biarritz.

Yz-les-Bains
Aix-les-Bains, pronounced EKS-lay-ban, is a city in southeastern France. (Bains = baths.) The name Yz, probably pronounced like eece but just possibly like the letter Y or Wise, may be an allusion to that. But here are a couple of odd things. (1) Although it is too high in the mountains to be "near the foothills," there is a ski resort called Ax-les-Thermes (Thermes = hot springs). And (2) scattered through the French foothills are a number of places whose names are letters of the alphabet: Ercé (R.C.), Port de l'Oo (O.), Les Eaux (O.), St. Béat (B.A.) and the excessively high peak Cembras d'Azè (A.Z., almost). There may be an intricate game of hide-the-spa going on here.

gave
French: mountain stream, torrent.

more desperamus than laudamus
Latin: more "we despair" than "we praise."

Page 932

Sophrosyne Hawkes
Sophrosyne is Greek, used in philosophy: moderation, moral sanity.

the old dutch
Rhyming slang: the old Duchess of Fife = the old wife.

treacle-and-brown-paper arrangement such as burglars use
One of P.G. Wodehouse's stories gives a good summary. You want to break a windowpane without lacerating yourself and waking everybody in the house. Get some treacle (molasses, syrup) and brown wrapping paper. Smear the window with the treacle and stick the paper to it. Rap the paper smartly. The glass fractures but doesn't fall out. (But is this correct or the fantasy of some crime writer?) --Volver 14:38, 24 January 2007 (PST)

Page 933

Page 934

Brambled golf balls

A "guttie" golf ball has a solid gutta-percha core [ See page 403 annotation ]; gutta-percha cores were invented in 1848. Modern golf balls have cores of titanium compounds, hybrid materials, softer shells and a more pressurized core. "Brambled" golf balls have hemispherical bumps molded into the surface to improve aerodynamics when the ball spins, the exact opposite of dimples which is what the surface of modern golf balls has. A brambled golf ball (sometimes called a Cayman ball) is specifically designed to fly true, but short. It is used on particularly short golf courses where space is at a premium. The brambles help it fly a trajectory that a normal golf ball would so that hooks and slices, fades and draws are possible.

Page 945

Annotation Index