Difference between revisions of "ATD 219-242"

Revision as of 13:25, 12 December 2006

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

Page 219

Madame Blavatsky
Died 1891. Wikipedia

Page 220

ten-in-one
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. Wikipedia

Page 221

'Tzaddik'
A righteous Jew. Wikipedia

Page 222

Simla
British outpost in Himalayas. Wikipedia

Smartly taken at silly point
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. examples

To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent
Mystical formula. examples

"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the Tractatus here.) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the P's and Q's love song, and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

The Number 22
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really.

Page 224

Trumper's
London's royal barbers since 1875. site

On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." Image of Letter

crosswords in newspapers
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in 1913. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, the Listener crossword.

Page 225

Girton College
For women, founded 1869. history

four stone
56 pounds.

gaver du visage
To forcefeed of the face. cite

Page 226

growler
Hansom cab.

Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward. Given the importance of railway lines in this and other chapters, it is also interesting to note that Cambridge's rail system was built in 1845 while Gottingen's was built in 1854.

Berlin Conference of 1878
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. Wikipedia

Page 227

"The Great Game"
'The Great Game' in this case does not refer to Padzhitnoff's airship, but it's the same name.

mamluk lamps
pic

Page 228

Parsons-Short Auxetophone
pic and info

Page 229

syntonic
Pun on electrical/psychological jargon? def

Page 230

Michaelmas term
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). Wikipedia

Page 231

postal image
pic

springtide
Cf "dreamy thing" p201.

Page 232

number twenty-four
Or 25? etext

Iamblichus
Wikipedia

maquillage
Makeup. def

Page 233

Collis Brown's Mixture
ingredients

a thousand pounds a year
Over $100,000 today. cite

Page 234

Condy's fluid
Wikipedia

Page 236

The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly
Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' Life, The Universe, and Everything, where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia.

The Ashes
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

Page 237

Bosanquet
Another Ashes reference. Bernard Bosanquet invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was reverse swing, another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

Hebrew letter Shin- sign
"This person greeted the Cohen by raising his left hand, then spreading the fingers two and two away from the thumb so as to form the Hebrew letter shin, signifying the initial letter of one of the pre-Mosaic (that is, plural) names of God, which may never be spoken.

" 'Basically wishing long life and prosperity,' explained the Choen, answering with the same gesture"

compare with the following from M&D 485:
Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter Shin and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.' "
So is there connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris"? and these backwoods Kabbalists?
Obvious connects with Star Trek's Vulcan greeting and with Leonard Nimoy's jewish faith.

Page 239

CREATE MORE DUKES and EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [1]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [2].

Page 241

A bosie from a beamer
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

Annotation Index