Difference between revisions of "ATD 489-524"

Revision as of 12:16, 29 January 2007

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

Page 489

stage left or audience left?
A theater has two directions called left. "Stage left" is to the left of the performers as they face the audience. "House left" or "audience left" is to the left of an audience member facing the stage.

desolate sighs
(They're not gay?)

embryo Apostlet
The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an elite intellectual secret society at Cambridge University, founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the Bishop of Gibraltar. Undergraduates being considered for membership are called "embryos" and are invited to "embryo parties," where members judge whether the student should be invited to join. More on the Cambridge Apostles and the Cambridge spy ring...

Cyprian Latewood
Possibly named after third-century Saint Cyprian, during his lifetime made Bishop of Carthage and eventually martyred under a Valerian persecution of Christians. Saint Cyprian is notable for having ordered his executioner to be paid twenty-five pieces of gold, then having stripped himself of clothes and awaiting, in prayer, his beheading. There are a number of thematic resonances between Pynchon's Cyrian and the traditional one; notably their primary characterization as men of submission and servitude. Additionally, etymologically, 'cyprian' signifies both Aphrodite-worshiper and prostitute. remy 07:33, 29 December 2006 (PST)

sod
Not simply the term for a disagreeable person but specifically a homosexual; short for sodomite.

Eastern wog
Cf p222.

The German Sea
A public house; the name occurs again with a different meaning at the end of this chapter.

sub-Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is a neighborhood in London that has a reputation for producing the highest quality of watches, clocks and jewellery. A sub-Clerkenwell trinket would be a poorly made trinket

annoyance
(Why?)

the other's penis seemed larger than one's own?

Page 490

gyps
Servants who do housekeeping chores for students living in college.

Also possibly gypsies. But context points to people in the colleges, which pretty well rules out Gypsies. --Volver 07:00, 11 January 2007 (PST)

Byron's Pool
???

"Div!"
???

"Whizzo!"
An early-twentieth century English slang expression of delight.

"That is that of which I speak!"
prob. homosexuality. cf. "I am the Love that dare not speak its name." -- Lord Alfred Douglas's poem 'Two Loves' in Chameleon ca. 1896.

Made more famous as an utterance by Oscar Wilde during his trial for sodomy. His response: '"The Love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare.[...]. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him."

This seems wrong, given the typical Pynchon scene of males ogling/desiring women. There is no homosexuality invloved with these guys

but a "'range' [again] of remarks" and 'all-night rhapsodizing' over the beauty of naked women. This line "That, etc." seems more likely a comic spin on a famous line which we know Pynchon has alluded to before [V.]: Wittgenstein's "whereof I can not speak, thereof I must remain silent" from the Tractatus. He could NOT not speak of their nakedness.

A rendition of That's what I'mtalkinabout!

This whole scene is reminiscent, perhaps, of the biblically famous Susannah and the Elders, where she, too, is watched appreciatively bathing. Wallace Stevens, among others, has a famous poem about it.

Cloisters Court

Cloisters Court, part of Girton College, Cambridge University.

King's
King's College, Cambridge University. --Volver 15:22, 8 January 2007 (PST)

Queen Anne's Gate

Some part of the British Home Office is, or was, located in the London (Westminster) street named Queen Anne's Gate. --Volver 15:22, 8 January 2007 (PST)

inconvenience
Not sure what connection Pynchon is making here, but the word inconvenience could not come up accidentally in this novel.

Newnham
An all-women's college at Cambridge, founded in 1871.

Wrangleresses
Made-up: top female Math Scholars at Cambridge. Top students were called Wranglers, all male at this time. "Cambridge University and within it of the Mathematics Tripos, the competitive graduation examination process that ranked candidates in order of “Wrangler”" ...

Phillippa Fawcett
Typo, should be Philippa Fawcett (1868-1948). She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1890, she was the first woman to score the highest mark at Mathematics Tripos at Cambridge. She served as a College Lecturer in mathematics at Newnham College for 10 years. [1]

Grace Chisholm and Will Young
Grace Chisholm (1868-1944), an English mathematician. She went to Girton College, Cambridge in 1889 to study mathematics. Since no women were accepted to graduate schools in England, after graduation She went to the University of Göttingen to continue her mathematics education and received her PhD there in 1895. The following year she married William Young (1863-1942), one of her tutors at Girton and also a mathematician. (romances with one's tutors à la . . .) Grace Chisholm and Will Young formed a mathematical married partnetship of real significance. Husband and wife played a major role in set theory research. Between them they wrote 214 mathematical articles and several books, including one on geometry and one on set theory. Grace Chisholm and William Young.

nautch-girl
notch-girl? A woman who could 'notch' a lot of men?

An exotic dancer, more or less. This whole phrase "nautch-girl extravagance of looks and self-possession" refers to the sense of dominance the stripper feels over the yawps in the audience.

Nautch girl was an Indian traditional dancer in Hindu temple or court performing ritual and religious dances. Her costume generally was of bright color. Pynchon probably refered to Yahsmeen's beautiful but exotic, extraordinary look and poise. [nautch girl].

socio-acrobatic aggrandizement
'social climbing'

opium beer
laudanum?, if not literally.

duc de Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu (September 9, 1585 – December 4, 1642), was a French clergyman, noble, and statesman.

Consecrated as a bishop in 1607, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Church and the state, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; from Wikipedia.

Line and staff
Cyprian's father sees his profession in the City as analogous to the profession of arms. Officers in the British and most other armies of the time were classified as "line," those commanding troops, and "staff," those performing administrative and planning functions.

Page 491

the City
Major banks and other big-money institutions are located in the City of London, a fairly small subset of Metropolitan London.

can't ever tell
Dog-eat-dog capitalism?

Reginald "Ratty" McHugh

"fifteen years later Reginald nodded appreciatively FIFTEEN YEARS OR SO LATER?...What is going on here time-wise?
All the conversation before this line, between Cyprian and his father, is "recalled", having taken place some "fifteen years or so" earlier.

one more flag
IE, his father's wallpaper brand.

Balkan Sobranies
An upscale brand of cigarette.

lilies-and-lassitude humor of the '90s
Cult of Oscar Wilde? Aubrey Beardsley and the pre-Raphaelites?

table d'hôte
French: host's table. In a restaurant, a meal chosen by the management, no substitutions please. If the appetizer is shrimp and you don't like shrimp, then don't eat the appetizer.

Very well, I contradict myself.
Walt Whitman allusion. See Leaves of Grass. Next line in ADT affirms this.

Page 492

divine . . . prosaic
(Walt Whitman was of course prosaic himself before he became divine.)

xanthocroid
Prefix xantho- is from Greek and means yellow. Does the whole word mean "yellow-haired"? Yes, i.e. blondes.

Capsheaf
Is this a third speaker, or another name for Ratty? Third speaker. Ratty puts in some words a little bit down the page.

viva
Slangy short form of viva voce, an oral examination.

Crayke
???

Shetland
Shetland Islands, an island group northeast of the Orkney Islands, comprising a county of Scotland.

Shetland ponies
one of a breed of small but sturdy, rough-coated ponies raised originally in the Shetland Islands.

D'accord
French: right, OK.

reputation for viciousness
The Shetland pony breed has a repuation for viciousness, even if this reputation isn't entirely accurate.

Arab
Arabian hourse. One of a breed of horses, raised originally in Arabia and adjacent countries, noted for their intellegence, grace, and speed.

Thoroughbred
One of a breed of horses, to which all race horse belong, originally developed in England by crossing Arbian stallions with European mares.

croft
Farm.

Mainland
The name of one of the 29 inhabited islands in the Shetland Islands, Scotland, UK. It is the largest island in Shetland Islands, the third largest in Great Britian.

Mavis Grind
A narrow isthmus joining the Northmavine peninsula to the rest of Mainland in the Shetland Islands, UK. The name means "gate of the narrow isthmus" in the local dialect. Mavis Grind is said to be the only place in the UK where you can toss a stone across land from the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

orthopædic journals
???

Dymphna
After St. Dymphna, whose intercession is effective against insanity, possession and epilepsy.

decks full of hearts
(52 or 13 per deck?)

Page 493

Thucydides... remind me
Thucydides' book is an account of the Peloponnesian war, organized in a rather difficult method in which all the actions of one season are described before proceeding to the next. Here are some erotic possibilities in it, however:
-Pericles, in his famous funeral oration, says the citizen ought to have an eros for the city.
-At one point some Athenians are lured out of a garrison by way of a gymnastic (that is male, nude) demonstration.
-On the eve of the fateful Sicilian expedition, all the oversized phalloi of the hermes are mysteriously knocked off. One of the generals on the expedition, Alcibiades, is accused of the offense and is eventually called called back. In Plato's Symposium Alcibiades drunkenly crashes the party and confesses that Socrates has consistently spurned his sexual advances.

In this context, Thucydides is proposed specifically for its non-erotic qualities. In writing his histories, Thucydides attempted to produce a clinical account of the Peloponnesian war without the passion and inaccuracies of previous histories, such as those of Herodotus. Indeed it is hard to imagine a less erotic work. It is suggested for Cyprian Latewood to help him get over his infatuation with Yashmeen.

McHugh
Talking to self?

Peeng-kyeah
Pinky, name given to Yashmeen by the blonde girls, Lorelei, Noellyn an Faun.

alfresceehwh
An alfresco, an outdoor gathering. -eehwh is a rendering of the accent for comic effect.

Lorelei, Noellyn, and Faun
Lorelei, more frequently "Loreley": In a famous German myth, a mermaid sitting on a rock by the river Rhine. The rock itself is also named Loreley. With her song, she bewitches the captains of passing ships, who then steer into the rock. The syllable "Ley" derives from a Celtic word for "stone".

Faun: Faunus, the Roman god of fertility, also responsible for nightmares. Fauns are also the Romans counterparts of the Greek "satyrs", followers of Dionysos. Faunus is playing a flute, another connection to music.

Noellyn ??

"all blonde, of course"
with all the Germanic mythology around here, possibly a reference to the "blonde/blue-eyed"-cliche of German women.

High Albedo
Albedo: power of reflecting light. Blondes reflect more light than brunettes.

"dark rock...again and again"
cf "Lorelei"

Pinky
Nicknames opposite of truth?

'sans merci'
a reference to Keats's 19th century Romantic ballad 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'. The lady of the title entraps men by making them fall in love with her and abandoning them.

Page 494

wrong altar
She, a lesbian, tells him that he 'worships' a woman who is wrong for him.

gnomic tenses
Gnomic = marked by aphorisms; aphoristic...'gnomic verse, a gnomic style". American Heritage Dictionary.

circs
Short form (typically British): circumstances.

'If she's not content with a vegetable love'
a reference to Marvell's seventeenth century poem 'To His Coy Mistress'. "Vegetable love" refers to the slow, slow way he would let his love grow, to become "vaster than empires and more slow" had they "world enough and time", but since they don't, since they are in human time, he is trying to 'convince' her to make love with him now.

Rugby blue
To be a 'Rugby blue' means to have represented Oxford (colour: dark blue) or Cambridge (light blue) at Rugby, which is a major European sport, invented, supposedly, at Rugby school in England in the nineteenth century.

Mâconnais
This refers to a bargain sub-Burgundian wine that comes from the Macon region of France.

George Grossmith...and that jolly Weedon

George and Weedon Grossmith, authors of the sublime, hillarious 'Diary of a Nobody', which gave the world the adjective 'pooterish'. Undoubtedly an influence on Pynchon's depictions of the 'oh dear' side of Englishness. Pooter is a 'nobody' who decides to publish his diaries, even though he is of no interest and nothing of any note occurs. A prototypical blogger, some might suggest. Originally published in Punch magazine (I think), set in late 19th Century. Don't know if the Grossmiths went to Cambridge, will check....

The elder George Grossmith performed in Gilbert and Sullivan works. He was not university-educated. The younger G.G. was also a noted performer and collaborated with P.G. Wodehouse.

[plenty of info here: http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/DON/Diary_Home.htm]

Page 495

Junior or Senior?
expressions used at traditional English (independent) schools to refer to younger and older brothers. Thus Smith Junior or Smith Senior.

See Grossmith entry on preceding page.

"Small hands, some evidence of early trauma, cp. Wilhelm II file"
Wilhelm II suffered an injury at birth and had a withered arm. All his photographs show him with the "small hand" in his pocket.

Wikipedia: William II, German Emperor Reign 1888-1918 Born 27 January 1859 Berlin, Germany Died 4 June 1941 Doorn, Netherlands Predecessor Frederick III Successor None (monarchy abolished)

Royal House House of Hohenzollern William II or Wilhelm II (born Frederick William Albert Victor; German: Friedrich Wilhelm Albert Victor) (27 January 1859–4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia (German: Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen), ruling both the German Empire and Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918.

The role of William II in German history is sometimes a controversial issue in historical scholarship. Initially seen as an important, but embarrassing figure in German history until the late 1950s, for many years after that, the dominant view was that he had little or no influence on German policy leading up to the First World War. This has been challenged since the late 1970s, particularly by Professor John C. G. Röhl who saw William II as the key figure in understanding the recklessness and subsequent downfall of Imperial Germany.[1]

more Pynchon and Germany.

"Map of the World"
???

Newmarket
A famous English race-course, hence the following reference to the 'racing season'.

Morse and Vassilev
???

East Rumelian
Rumelia was a Turkish province in the Balkan Peninsula. East Rumelia lay mostly in what is now Bulgaria. (Cf. P.356 and note to P.356).

Treaty of Berlin
In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 Russia crushed Turkey and forced it to accept the Treaty of San Stefano. This created a greatly expanded Bulgaria under Russian protection. Britain feared that Russia might spread its control to Constantinople (now Istanbul) and to the Suez Canal, and therefore, with Austria, demanded a revised treaty. Weakened by war, Russia consented. The Treaty of San Stefano was replaced thus by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the final act of the Congress of Berlin of the Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The new treaty recognized the complete independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. The autonomy of Bulgaria was also recognized but it remained under formal Ottoman overlordship and divied between the Principality of Bulgaria and the autonomous province of East Rumelia.

zadruga
Bulgarian: labor cooperative.

tchifliks
Bulgarian: farms.

gradinarski druzhini
Bulgarian: gardening (or farming?) associations.

gossamer
Pynchon draws him as 'wet' as possible?

Page 496

sod . . . pouffe
Derogatory terms for homosexual ("sod" from "sodomite").

failed canards
Discredited rumors.

Lent . . . Easter . . . Long Vacation
Lent is an anual season of fasting and penitence in preparation for Easter, beginning at Ash Wednesday and lasting 40 weekdays to Easter. After Lent, Easter the school terms would soon glide into the summer recess, the Long Vacation.

Colonial Office
Defunct British Ministry, later Foreign & Colonial Office, now Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Okhrana
a secret police force of the Russian Empire and part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Wikipedia Entry

Ballhausplatz
Location of the Austrian State Chancellery and Foreign Ministry Wikipedia Entry

Wilhelmstrasse
Administrative Center of the Kingdom of Prussia Wikipedia Entry

G.F.B. Riemann
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann. A German mathematician who did extensive work in differential geometry. Wikipedia Entry

Bernhard Riemann (1826-66), a German mathermatician. He studied mathematics at the University of Göttingen and later taught that subject there. He did importnat work in geometry, complex analysis, and mathematical physics. Riemanm's work on Riemann geometry laid the foundation for Einstein's general relativity. He investigated the Riemann zeta function about which he stated the famous (and still not completely proven) Riemann hypothesis (see below). He died of tuberculosis in Selasca, Italy, at the age of 39. [Riemann].

Zeta function . . . conjecture
The Riemann zeta function. Wikipedia Entry

The Riemann zeta function is an extremely important special function of mathematics and physics that arises in definite integration and is intimately related with very deep results surrounding the prime number theorem. While many of the properties of this function have been investigated, there remain important fundamental conjectures (most notably the Riemann hypothesis) that remain unproved to this day. See [Zeta function].

The Riemann hypothesis (conjecture) is a conjecture about the distribution of zeros of the Riemann zeta function. The Riemann zeta function is defined for all complex numbers (Cf page 132) not equal to zero. It has zeros at the negative even integers, (-2, -4, -6 and so on), called trivial zeros. The Riemann hypothesis is concerned with the non-trivial zeros, saying, "The real part of any non-trivial zero of the Riemann zeta function is 1/2." This conjecture remains unproved. [Riemann conjecture].

'joint'
Opium den.

Bob's your uncle
An English and Commonwealth expression referring to the ease with which something can be done. Still used, though probably more common in the time in which Against the Day is set. Possible derivations.

Limehouse
An area of East London that borders on the River Thames near the Isle of Dogs. The name may derive from the fact that sailors were about as this was a point of embarkation for sea journeys. In the late 19th century the area was famous for opium dens Wikipedia.

Page 497

Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a street in Westminster bourough, London. Notable for its super rich and famous high profile residents and its exclusive shops. (Recent residents included members of the Saudi royal family, Joan Collins, Gucci, Prince Diana and so on; it's shops included Egyptian Fayed's Harrods, etc . . . ) [Knightsbridge].

excess
(So not wholly gossamer?)

Coronation Red
???

Ranji and C.B. Fry
Two notable cricketers who would have been in their prime when the novel is set. Both played for England. 'Ranji' is short for Ranjitsinhji and is how he was familiarly known.

Australian season
A reference to the Australian cricket season which runs throughout their summer and the Eurpopean winter.

New Court
A major building in St John's College (founded 1511), University of Cambridge. It was completed in 1831. It's style is Gothic, a romantic version of a mediaeval building; its basic plan is classical. For pictures and more info New Court.

Tavernier-Gravet slide rules
French-made, some with special scales (slope conversions, etc.). Photograph.

High Church
Anglican

Mags and Nuncs and Matins responsories
A responsory is a form of (Christian) chant (call and response, perhaps), which is here qualified by Latin designations for specific prayers.
Mags: possibly for Magnificat, the hymn beginning "My soul doth magnify the Lord"?
Nunc = Now. For Nunc dimittis, the prayer beginning "Let thy servant now depart."
Matin = Morning.

Trinity
Trinity College, was founded by Henry VIII in 1546 as part of the Univeristy of Cambridge. Most of its major buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. "Princes, spies, poets and prime-ministers have all been taught here." (Trinity's own website Trinity)

King's
King's College, Cambridge University, was found by Henry VI in 1441. From the first, the College's buildings were intened to be a magnificent display of the power of royal patronage. King's College Chapel, wanted by the King to be without equal in size and beauty and took nearly a century to complete, is one of the greatest examples of gothic architecture. It is also home to the world famous Choir, envisaged by Henry VI for daily singing of services in the chapel. [King's].

not Zion
The context indicated that the original meaning Mount Zion, a hill near Jerusalem, was used; i.e. "not Mount Zion".

Compline hour
???
bedtime. Compline is the last prayers or service of the day.

Te Deum
Te Deum = Thou, O God (Latin).

Since "the Te Deum" was used in the text, it meant the ancient Latin hymn of praise to God, in the form of a psalm, sung regularly at matins in the Roman Catholic Church and, usually in an English translation, at Morning Prayer in the Anglican Church, as well as on special occasions as a service of thanksgiving or commemoration. First words of the hymn, which begin; Te Deum laudāmus (we praise thee God). Te Deum also refers to the musical setting or form of this hyman with a certain structure which Filtham had blotched.

Khaki Election
A term in British political history. It refered to the British general election of 1900. The reason for this name was that the issues of the election were overshadowed totally by the issue of the (2nd) Boer War (South African War, 1899-1902 [Boer War]), as khaki was the color of the new army uniform. A Khaki Election is now applied to any British national election which is heavily influenced by wartime or postwar sentiment. 1918 general election (end of World War I) and 1945 election (end of Wordl War II) were both described as Khaki Elections.

Filtham
???

Page 498

violation of . . . child-labor statutes
If such laws applied to children in the choirs of Cambridge colleges, the great length of the composition would keep them at work too many hours.

chromaticism . . . Richard Strauss
Chromaticism refers to the use of the chromatic scale in composing music. Ever since Baroque Period (17th to early 18th century) almost all music were compsoed either in major or minor scale, in which only seven of the twelve tones of the octave were used. Beginning in the late Romanic Period (mid 19th to 20th century) the chromatic scale including all 12 tones of the octave was used. By using the tones that are not "supposed" to be in a certain key, the music thus composed had stronger dissonance and exaggerated tension.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era well known for his tone poems and opera. His Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), a symphonic poem, was made widely popular by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 — the music (especially the brass fanfare opening) introduced the memorable ape/man sequence of the film. Chromaticism was not that new to Richard Strauss, but "relentless chromaticism" just might be too "modern" for him.

Staindrop
Home of Jeremiah Dixon.

"Filtham's Tedium"
(Talk about overlabored puns...)

dress regulations
???

Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), a German mathematician and scientist, and one of the all-time greats. He worked in a wide variety of fields in both mathematics and physics including number theory, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, magnetism, astronomy and optics. His work has had an immense influence in many areas. Riemann was a studen of his at Göttingen. Wikipedia.

Ramanujan
Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), one of India's greatest mathematical geniuses. Long before he came to Cambridge and though without any formal university education, Ramanujan made substantial contributions to the anlytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions and infinite series. He, a poor savant from India, was invited in 1914 to Cambridge by G.H. Hardy after he wrote him a letter asking abstruse mathematical questions. In his letter, Ramanujan enclosed a long list of then unproved theorems which he had solved. After his arriving at Cambridge Ramnujan collaborated with G.H. Hardy resulting in important results. He was allowed to enroll in 1914 in Cambridge despite not having the proper qualifications and received a PhD degree in 1916. Plagued by health problems all his life, his health deteriorated rapidly from 1917, and he returned to India in 1919 and died there the following year. Two years efore his death, however, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. [Ramanujan]. Therefore, ". . . Ramanujan here at Trinity . . ." could happen only between 1914 - 1919.

revisited, in some way 'relighted' the scene
Light, mental light.

display of hurt feelings
Cf p30.

Page 499

light up
Dark world vs spark of value.

ζ-function
Another reference to the Riemann zeta function.

Hilbert thinks of nothing else
The Riemann hypothesis is one of the 20 problems put forth by Hilbert in 1900. Wikipedia Entry

desire... of rather a specialized sort
???

Great Eastern
Railway linking Cambridge and London.

Page 500

Weierstrass and Sofia Kovalevskaia
Sofia Kovalevskaia was the first woman to apply for a mathematics degree at the University of Goettingen in Germany. She was not accepted at the university, but was allowed to tutor under one of the university's math professors. She wrote a paper there that became an important part of the theory of differential equations.

Kovalevskaia's private math tutor was Weierstrass at Berlin (see below).

Karl Weierstrass (1815-97), a German mathermatician. He attended the University of Bonn studying law, finance and economics instead of mathermatics, the subject he was really interested in and studied out of shcool. He left the Univeristy of Bonn without a degree and went to the University of Münster for mathematics. Later he became a teacher in the city of Münster. Around 1850 he took a chair at the Technical University of Berlin. For four years (1870-1874) he gave private mathematics lessons to Sofia Kovalevskaia while she was denied the university entrance in Berlin. His investigations were mainly on the topic of "Special Functions": Weierstrass Elliptic Function, Weierstrass Zeta Function, Weierstrass Product Theroem, etc.

Sofia Kovalevskaia (1850-91) Russian mathematician and novelist. She was born in Moscow and showed an interest in mathematics from an early age. When 11 she studied differential and integral analysis from her father's calculus lecture notes that were used as wallpaper in the family house. She was given a special tutor of higher mathematics. At age 18 she entered a "false" marriage (it became genuine later) in order to be able to attend college abroad. In 1869 she enrolled as a provisional student at Heidelberg University. In 1870 she moved to Berlin attempting to study under Weierstrass and enroll at Berlin University. But the university refused to accept her because of her gender. However, Weirerstrass was so impressed by her talent that he gave her private mathematics lessons twice a week for four years. By the spring of 1874, Kovalevskaia had completed three papers. Weierstrass deemed each of these worthy of a doctorate. And with his help, in Kovaleskaia's absence, University of Göttingen granted her a PhD in Mathematics (a historical first) and Master (summa cum laude) in Fine Art. In the same year she returned to Russia but failed to get an academic job. She did not practice mathematics for six years but pursued literary work instead. In 1880 she returned to mathematics and applied to teach at universities in Russia but was denied again. Finaly she found employment at Sweden's Stockholm University in 1883. She died of pneumonia in Stockholm in 1891.
In her short life Kovalevskaia had won a historic place in mathermatics. She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in mathermatics, the first woman to obtain a permanent position on a university faculty in mathematics, the first woman having a place on the editorial staff of a mathematical journal, the first female member of St. Petersburg Academy of Science, and the first woman to win the most prestigeous mathematical contest of her day, an honor equivalent to the winning of a Nobel Prize. Her literary achievements was quite substantial. Her Russian Childhood won wide acclaim and was translated into many languages (the English edition still avilable). She had a couple of novels (Nihilist Girl etc) published as well. She dabbled in playwriting and produced a steady stream of both fiction and nonfiction publications for Russian journals.

sounds like maths
Yashmeen seems to see 'maths' as otherwordly.

folio
an edition of a book in pages that fold in half to make the leaves of a codex.

four-color chromolithograph
Chromo--in Chemistry, chromium

Snazzbury
???

Silent Frock
Cf noise-canceling headphones.

toilette
No longer in use in modern english, the term 'toilette' indicated a dressing table covered to the floor with cloth (toile) and lace, on which stood a dressing glass, which might also be draped in lace. Wikipedia

It's still used, and in addition to the dressing table meaning, it refers to how somebody is "got up"--dress, makeup and all.

Page 501

green, white, and mauve stripes
Colors associated with the Suffragette Movement of the time.Diane Atkinson, one of the leading contemporary scholars on the suffrage movement, edited a book, Suffragettes in the Purple, White, and Green London 1906-1914, which served as a catalog at an exhibition of suffrage memorabilia at the Museum of London and which discusses the symbolism. Atkinson notes that the color scheme was devised by Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence, treasurer and co-editor of the weekly newspaper Votes for Women. In the spring 1908 issue of that paper, Pethick-Lawrence explained the symbolism of the colors:

"Purple as everyone knows is the royal colour. It stands for the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette, the instinct of freedom and dignity...white stands for purity in private and public life...green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring."

black crepon
The shell is made of black rayon crepon and fully lined to within 2" of bottom hem. From a description of a black [nursing] dress online.

Italian-cloth
The Champagne fairs were a circuit of six cloth fairs in the towns of Champagne and Brie, changing location every two months and spanning the year from January to October. At their height, in the 13th century, the Champagne fairs linked the cloth-producing cities of the Low Countries with the Italian dyeing and exporting centers. The fairs, which were already well-organized at the start of the century, were one of the earliest manifestations of a linked European economy, a characteristic of the High Middle Ages.

The towns provided huge warehouses, still to be seen at Provins. From the north came woolens and linen cloth. Wikipedia.

Page 502

modern lettering
Refers to Art Nouveau lettering popular at the turn of the 20th century and still commonly used on entrance signs for Paris metro stations.

"a kind of helical ramp"
Possibly a reference to the Riemann Sphere, which is built in large part upon complex numbers and which look something like a helix.

L'ARIMEAUX ET QUEURLIS
Larry, Moe, and Curly's

twilling
Twill = A fabric with diagonal parallel ribs. 2. The weave used to produce such a fabric. TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: twilled, twill·ing, twills To weave (cloth) so as to produce a pattern of diagonal parallel ribs. From The American Heritage Dictionary

Page 503

Earl's Court Wheel
Earl's Court is an area of London. A Ferris Wheel there.

Another "paramorphic" parallel to our time: The London Eye, a huge Ferris Wheel built for the Millenium Exposition of 2000. The trip around is not, as Yasmeen notes, thermodynamically reversible, since one would be "changed forever" in the course of the journey around the wheel (in the Heraclitean sense that "No man steps in the same river twice"--the river changes.)
This is the connection between entropy in thermodynamics and entropy in information theory, embodied in Maxwell's Demon [2], at the center of Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49, now back as a problem in non-Euclidean geometries and multiple dimensions.

whelks
A whelk is a large marine gastropod (snail) found in temperate waters.

Chinese Turkestan railway shares
Chinese Turkestan is where the Chums of Chance are currently, in the sub-desertine vehicle.

jellied eel
An East End of London delicacy Wikipedia

West Ham, the Park, Upton Lane, lads all in claret and blue
The "lads in claret and blue" are kicking a football around, as they are players of current Premiership side West Ham United. Founded in 1895, the "Hammers" are playing their home games at Boleyn Ground aka "Upton Park". Yep, soccer.

lupine liminality
Latin: lupus = wolf, limen = threshold. Allusion to the proverbial wolf at the door.

Lupine = any of a genus (Lupinus) of leguminous herbs including some poisonous forms and others cultivated for their long showy racemes of usually blue, purple, white, or yellow flowers or for green manure, fodder, or their edible seeds; also : an edible lupine seed.

The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition, during which your normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed, opening the way to something new.

hydrangeas
a kind of flower. Wikipedia

Hardy,
Cf. page 239. G.H. (Godfrey Harold) Hardy (1877-1947),famous Cambridge mathematician Wikipedia. He wrote "A Mathematician's Apology" Wikipedia Full Text. Knew all the most famous intellectuals and was himself very influential.

Page 504

Harwich... German Sea
Harwich is a town in Essex, England, located on the coast with the North Sea to the east.The North Sea historically also known as the German Ocean. By the late nineteenth century, German Sea was a rare, scholarly usage ...

"The German Sea" is also a public house (p. 489).

Hook of Holland
Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands. It is not a hook but the southwest corner of South-Holland province (Dutch hoek = corner).

Hook of Holland is also the name of the ferry port, an entry point into Holland and Europe. It is served by ferry sailings from Harwich and is the main entry port when travelling from the UK. It is less than 15 miles southwest of The Hague. [Port of Hook of Holland].

madhouse at Osnabrück
OSNABRUCK, a town and episcopal see of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, situated on the Hase, 70 m. W. of the city of Hanover, 31 m. by rail N.E. of Munster, and at the junction of the lines Hamburg-Cologne and BerlinAmsterdam. Pop. (1905) 59,5 80. The lunatic asylum occupies a former nunnery.

Page 505

plug hats
a plug hat may be a top hat or a bowler hat.

Cobh
the historic port town of Cobh Ireland. Many ocean liners sailed from there, including the Titanic... the port of Queenstown (now known as Cobh)

Page 506

Euclid
Avenue of classy mansions in Cleveland

elms in Cleveland
(Before Dutch elm disease?)

went on for years
the Krakatoa eruption put dust and ashes aloft for years.

Krakatoa
The correct name is Krakatau. It is a volcanic, uninhabited Indonesia's island lies between Java and Sumatra. A series of cataclysmic explosions of August 26 - 27, 1883, collapsed the northern two-thirds of the island beneath the sea, generating an immense tsunamis that ravaged adjeacent coastlines and killed over 36,000 perople. Tephra (volcanic rock and glass fragments) from the eruption fell as far as 1,500 miles downwind in the days following the explosion. The finest fragments were propelled high into the stratosphere, spreading outward as a broad cloud acroos the entire equatorial belt in only two weeks. These particles would remain suspended in the atmosphere for a long time. For years, the earth experienced exotic colors in the sky, halos around the sun and moon, and a spectacular array of anomalous sunsets and sunrises. In the year following the equption, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2° Celsius. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperature did not return to normal until 1888. For more about 1883 eruption, map, pictures, current volcanic activities etc see Krakatau 1 and Krakatau 2.

Shorty
the 'short-order' cook?

Page 507

how little I cared
(Blaming Krakatoa???)Seems to me she is saying that her feelings for Bert faded, as everything was, maybe, supposed to, as had the fantastic sunsets caused by Krakatoa when they got back to ordinary.

palm upward
???

Prospect Avenue
???

leaf-spring suspension
???
A form of suspension for wheeled vehicles. Still very occasionally used in automobiles, but more likely nowadays to be seen on a perambulator. Named for shape of the suspension coils.

overrun
the excess kerosene when made.

Flats
lands around the Cuyahoga River.

Page 508

Cuyahoga
Major river in Ohio that goes around Cleveland. Famous in the 60's for literally catching on fire from the combustible pollutants in it. Here, Pynchon shows that industrial pollution and its effect on the river. "It's like looking down into the sky".

your exact face
(How common?)

allow Erlys do
typo in first edition.

Page 509

descending minor triad
in music, an interval of three half tones.

Svengali
In George Du Maurier's novel Trilby (1894), the hypnotist who makes the title character a great singer but keeps her under rigorous control.

tea roses
Yellow-orange roses.

cosmos
any composite plant of the genus Cosmos, of tropical America, some species of which are cultivated for their showy flowers.

Page 510

first momentous glance
Page 349 only?

Elis
Yale University students, called so after founder Eli Yale.

snooting
the act of snubbing, treating scornfully or with disdain (OED)

tuned to a 440 A
???

Page 511

preferring
Cf Rose in "Titanic".

Root Tubsmith
???

Fuchs
Lazarus Fuchs (1833-1902), a German mathematician. He worked on differential equations and the theory of functions, ordinary differential equations with complex functions as coefficients, elliptic integrals, etc. Fuchs.

Schwarz
Herman Schwarz (1843-1921), a German mathematician, known for his work in complex analysis. He worked in Halle, Göttingen and then Berlin, dealing with the subjects of function theory, differential geometry and the calculus of variation. Schwarz.

Frobenius
Ferdinand Frobenius (1849-1917), a German mathematician. [3], possibly important here for his contributions to Group Theory and to topology [4]. He received his doctorate from the Univeristy of Berlin supervised by Weierstrass. Later, he taught mathematics there as well. He combined results from the theory of algebraic equations, geometry and number theory, which led him to the representation theory and the character theory of groups. Frobenius.

Professor Manning
???

language difference
Kit and Root both speak English, but in different mathematical dialects.

Marseilles
Second largest city of France; Mediterannean port, legendarily corrupt.

species of tarantella
Tarantella is a fast dance or dance tune in 6/8 time. Probably named for Taranto, not tarantula.

dreamed it
(Page?)

Cigar Deck
???

Page 512

how to stop looking
Cf p27.

lobelias
Plant or flower of the genus Lobelia. At least one member of the genus is blue (Blue Lobelia.

Victor Herbert
Irish-born American composer (1859-1924) of songs, operettas, light classics.

Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948), born in Venice, composer of many extremely popular operas.

Page 513

1st Edition Typo
"She smlled falsely"

Reuben
A hick, as in the carnie's cry, "Hey, Rube".

Page 515

high-hatting
Snubbing, cutting.

memories of desert plateau, mountian peaks...some unexpected river
Instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the back-country Rocky Mountains. Cf also the description of the landscape Frank's riding through on page 394/395.

twenty-knot push
The ship is making twenty knots (20 nautical miles per hour), hence generating a twenty knot wind toward the stern.

uncreated
Featureless? ongoing present becoming the future as compared to his memories.

The watery void of Genesis, before creation of the land and life.

after 1914
Still 10 years away.

S.M.S. Emperor Maximilian
S.M.S.: Seiner Majestäts Schiff, His Majesty's Ship (German or, as in this case, Austrian). One Habsburg Emperor Maximilian was set up in Mexico, then deposed and killed.

25,000-ton
The ship's displacement (measure of its size).

dreadnoughts
HMS Dreadnought gave her name to a new philosophy that governed the design of capital ships beginning in the 1890s and continuing past the 1920s: high speed, heavy armor, heavy investment in the "main battery" and de-emphasis of secondary battery, main battery comprising the largest practicable guns mounted in turrets on the ship's centerline.

Slavonian
Perhaps a deceptive name for the company; Slavonia was an inland province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, northwest of Croatia; Trieste would have been in Slovenia.

Schultz-Thorneycroft
???

Parsons turbines
???

British men-o'-war
Warships.

Page 516

shell-rooms-to-be and giant powder magazines
Stupendica contains spaces that will belong to Maximilian on her transformation. (Indeed, she must contain the shells and powder too.)

circular cabins
A battleship turret extends several decks below the gunhouse. No doubt there were stacks of these circular cabins.

twelve-inch barrels
Dreadnoughts progressed from 8-inch main guns to 12-inch in a couple of decades.

shelter deck
???

to fold upward
Transformer fashion.

casemates
Turrets.

freeboard
The amount of the ship above the water. You need a certain amount of freeboard to maintain balance, but battleships try to limit it as much as possible (so as to present a smaller target).

"Dazzle" camouflage
Patterns as described in the text, meant to confuse enemy eyes. Camouflage techniques used in World War I were developed in part by magician Jasper Maskelyne, a descendant of the Astronomer Royal in Mason & Dixon.

dihedrals
A dihedral is the figure formed by two planes intersecting in a line. The bow of a ship is pretty close.

Fangsley
???

less horizontally disposed
less level

Passenger liner has as many decks as possible above waterline. Warship has as many as possible below waterline, hence it's "taller."

Trieste
Trieste is a city and port in northeastern Italy right on the border with Slovenia. It is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. The city had been occupied, administrated, annexed by various countries in the past. As late as early 19th century Napoleon took it for France, and in 1813 Austrian empire annexed it and kept it until the end of World War I. In 1920 it was transfered to Italy. During World War II German occupied the city until 1945 when Yugoslav partisans under Tito briefly occupied the city. Between 1947 to 1954 Trieste was governed by British and American. Finally, in 1954 the city of Trieste went to Italy and the southern suburb went to Yugoslaiva (now Slovenia).

Lloyd Arsenale
Lloyd Shipyard, Austria's commercial counterpart of Stabilimento Tecnico. In 1833 a company with the name Lloyd Austriaco was founded as a maritime insurance organization. Three years later a new section, the Shipping Section was established and running company's own vessels. In 1853 Lloyd Austriaco started buidling its own shipyard, called Arsenale, both for building new ships and maintenance of the fleet. The shipyard was completed and fully operative in 1861. In 1919 Lloyd Austriaco changed its name to Lloyd Triestino, currently still operating in Trieste. [Lloyd Arsenale].

Stabilimento Tecnico
Technical Plant. Stabilimento Tecnico was an Austro-Hungarian shipbuilding company based in Trieste. It served the Austro-Hungarian Navy on a large scale and was the largest shipyard of that country. [Stabilimento]. Four Tegetthoff class dreadnoughts were built by Stabilimento Tecnico for the Austro-Hungarian Navy: SMS Viribus Unitis, SMS Tegetthoff, SMS Prinz Eugen and SMS Szent Istvan. The had about 21,000 ton displacement and a speed of 20 kt. [Tegetthoff].
Stabilimento Tecnico and Lloyd Triestino are both currently active. In fact these two establishments are the largest industrial organizations in Trieste.

Page 517

merged
Pynchon writes about bilocation in a peculiar sense: not necessarily one person being in two places, but one place being two (or one language being two, Dutch/Flemish, Serbian/Croatian).

Promontorio
???

O.I.C. Bodine
"Oh, I see" Bodine?. Cf. Pig Bodine from V., also GR and Mason & Dixon.

O.I.C: Oiler-in-Chief?

fermented potato mash
Cf Veikko's vodka p82.

four shafts
Four propellers.

Mauretania
HMS Mauretania, launched 1907, sister ship of the ill-fated Lusitania (the sinking of the latter propelled the US into WW I). Served as Cunard liner, troopship, hospital ship in WW I.

Zu befehl, Herr Hauptheitzer
German: Ready for orders, Chief Stoker. (Should be Zu Befehl, Herr Hauptheizer.)

Black Gang
The stoking crew, turned black by coal dust.

Oberhauptheitzer
German: Master Chief Stoker. (Should be: Oberhauptheizer.)

Mannlicher
German military pistol.

"Dampf mehr!"
German for "more steam!" (Should be: Mehr Dampf!)

singlet
Undershirt.

Page 518

ignorant off
Typo in First Edition.

Marconi room
Radio shack.

design maximum of nine degrees
Maximilian will right herself from a nine-degree heel but may be in trouble if she leans over farther.

nymphs
Stage in the life cycle of many insects, including the cockroach.

"Porca miseria"
Italian: good grief, for heaven's sake, dammit.

Page 519

tight circle
Military as inane as circus clowns.

southeast by east
The compass rose has 32 points, each 11 and a quarter degrees from the next. Southeast by east is one point to the east of southeast, i.e., 123 and three-quarters degrees clockwise from north.

deeper levels
(Eg particle vs wave?)

A "deeper level" where dualities are resolved
Engine room is far below the main deck, therefore a deeper level. The Stupendica/Maximilian duality is resolved there because it's a shared space.

Chinese
???

nicht wahr
German: aint it true?

Graz
Capital of the Austrian province of Styria Wikipedia

bilge-crab
???

Page 520

a Teutonic
Ethnically a German. Tiny dig at S. Weisenburger? The GR Companion uses this odd noun ("Teuton" is more obvious) in the gloss at V602.12-13.

Tangier
a seaport in Northern Morocco on the west end of the Strait of Gibralta, about 500 miles northeast from Agadir, another Atlantic seaport. (Casablanca is midway between them.)

Mulai Ahmed er-Raisuli
Infamous Morrocan outlaw/warlord. From this website: "Several decades before Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Islamic insurgents, an international crisis ignited between the United States and the Middle East. In May 1904 Moroccan warlord Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli kidnapped Ion Perdicaris, a wealthy Greek-American resident of Tangier, in an attempt to extort money from the Sultan of Morocco. President Theodore Roosevelt responded with his "big stick" approach to diplomacy by dispatching a squadron of seven battleships to the Moroccan coast with the order: "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." The nine-week standoff, with US troops and ships in Tangier Bay and Raisuli holding fort in the mountains, exposed the impotence of emerging American power and a critical misunderstanding about Moroccan politics. When it was discovered that Perdicaris was not an American citizen after all, the US government kept the embarrassing episode a secret until 1933. Profiting royally from the conflict, Raisuli built his palace, which he called the "House of Tears"." another source

Agadir, Queen of the Iron Coast
Agadir is a city in southwest Morocco, capital of the Souss-Massa-Dra region. Wikipedia From the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Sixty miles farther south lies Mogador, beyond which the coast becomes more and more inaccessible and dangerous in winter, being known to navigators as the " Iron Coast." From Cape Sim (Ras Tagriwalt), to m. south of Mogador, the direction is due south to Cape Ghir (Ighir Ufrani), the termination of Jebel Ida u Taman, a spur of the Atlas. Beyond this headland lies Agadir (Agadir Ighir), the Santa Cruz Mayor or Santa Cruz de Berberia of the Spaniards, formerly known as the Gate of the Sudan.' It is a little town with white battlements three-quarters of a mile in circumference, on a steep eminence 600 ft. high." old postcards from Agadir

colonists...justify German interests...shadow-colonists
In July 1911, the german gunboat "Panther" approached the harbour of Agadir under the pretext to protect german citizens from Sus-tribesmen, resulting in the "Agadir-Crisis" and nearly triggering WW I three years early. As there were no german citizens to protect in Agadir, so one had to be dispatched from Mogador. source

...destined for plantation...
Typo in First Edition. ???

Sus... Susi
The Sous Basin Wikipedia and it‘s inhabitants, probably.

Abdel Aziz
Sultan of Morocco 1894-1908 (aged 10-24yrs.) Wikipedia

Canaries
Canary Islands, about 80 miles off Morocco‘s Atlantic coast Wikipedia

Many would go crazy and set out in small boats...
Another paramorpic mirror image of our century. The Canaries, a Spanish possession, are the goal of untold thousands of would-be African entrants to the EU, i.e. a route of illegal immigration.

Lübeck
Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein (northern Germany). Wikipedia

Berbers
The Berbers (also called Amazigh people or Imazighen, "free men") are an ethnic group indigenous to Northwest Africa, speaking the Berber languages of the Afroasiatic family. In actuality, Berber is a generic name given to numerous heterogeneous ethnic groups that share similar cultural, political, and economic practices. It is not a term originated by the group itself. Wikipedia. Berbers of southwestern Morocco usually belong to the ones known as Chleuhs pics

Page 521

tree-climbing goats
Can be seen often, esp. in Morocco Pic

argan trees
The Argan (Argania spinosa, syn. A. sideroxylon Roem. & Schult.) is a species of tree endemic to the calcareous semi-desert Sous valley of southwestern Morocco. It is the sole species in the genus Argania. Wikipedia

Gnaoua
The Gnawa or Gnaoua refers at once to a style of Moroccan music with sub-Saharan Africa origins or influence, an ethnic group and religious order at least in part descended from former slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa or black Africans migrated in caravans with the Trans-Saharan trade, or a combination of both Wikipedia more on Gnaoua Gnaoua music sample mp3 nicely made site on Gnawa

mlouk gnaoui
Mlouk is the plural of melk, a supernatural entity envoked in the Gnawa rituals. Various types are known and they are distinguished by colors. The following is a google translation of the relevant paragraph from this site: "The mlouk are of male or female sex, Moslems or Jews. Their color corresponds to their origins. Thus one distinguishes the mlouks from the sea (bahriyin) to which one allots the light blue; the celestial ones (samaouiyin), have as a color dark blue; the mlouk of the forest (rijal el ghaba), originating in Africa, have as a color the black just like the mlouk pertaining to the troop of Sidi Mimoun, finally the red mlouk (Al homar), related to blood and which haunt the slaughter-houses, have as a color the red. The white and the green, colors symbols of Islam sunnite, are reserved to the called upon saints, in particular Moulay Abdelkader Jilali and Chorfa. To the female mlouk three colors are allotted: the yellow for the coquettery of Lala Reflected, the red for Lala Rkia for its capacity to cure the menorrhagia and the black for Lala Aïcha Kendisha because of its Sudanese origin. The Jewish mlouks which are sometimes called upon after the troop of the female mlouk have the black color. Incense fumigations of various perfumes accompany the invocations by these mlouks, with a preference however for the benzoin or jaoui."

Seigneurs Noirs
French: Black Lords. According to the above translation, those most probably are jewish mlouks.

Bardo State
Tibetan Bhuddist belief in a state between two mortal incarnations, during which one has direct perception of reality--for better or worse, Karmically speaking. [5]

Habsburg navy
Austrian Navy

Mogador road
Mogador" is a city and tourist resort in Morocco, near Marrakech on the Atlantic coast. (31°30′47″N) Mogador is another name for Essaouira Wkipedia about 50 miles north of Agadir. old postcards Mogador

Tawil Balak
In the Liner Notes for the Album "Love Songs of Lebanon" downloadable from this site the song Tawil Balak Ya Habboub translates as "Patience, My Love" - Tawil Balak being the Patience part. (Thats one nice soundtrack, btw!)

"Tawil", according to web-searches, is arabic for "allegorical explanation/interpretation/exegese" (of the Qu‘ran and Sunna texts). "Balak" might refer to the according Tora reading (Parsah) Wikipedia. cf. Balaam‘s Ass p. 432. Do the cosmopolitan regulars at the bar like Moises spend their time interpreting holy texts?

Rahman
???

Fomalhaut
The Maritime Digital Encyclopedia lists a "Dutch Vessel" named "Formalhaut" pic.

According to several websites 1 2 3 Wikipedia etc. Fomalhaut is the 17th or 18th brightest star as seen from our planet and is located in the constellation called Pisces Austrinus (Southern Fish). The name derives from the Arabic Fum (or Fam) al-Hut, meaning "Mouth of the Fish" or according to a few web-resources the contributor has just visited, "Mouth of the Whale". The latter would mean its a strong connotation with the Biblical Legend of Jonah and the Whale (see annotations for this page below (not a spoiler, i hope).

Among most readers of Science-Fiction "Fomalhaut" is a location as common as "Aldebaran" or "Cassiopeia".

As per today (07 01 10) the Wikipedia-Entry on Demon Fomalhaut is just a stub. According to most sites the contributor just visited, claiming credibility in the Book of Enoch Wikipedia and due to some more non-canonical catergorizations, Fomalhaut seems to be a member of the infamous gang of Fallen Angels, a daredevil companero to Lucifer that is. This sub-summation in a hierarchy of angels might refer to some astrological/-nomical constellations of the star Fomalhaut as is.

As usual, with TP, we dont know for sure if theres some outlandish pun intended/-cluded in the name of a person or thing. What, to give variety to it, about a german compositive noun? Ger. "formal" = formal (like in formal behavior) + "haut" = skin; "Formal Skin".

Moïsés
???

Jonah... Massa
Jonah Wikipedia Entry "Jonah on the Web" From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica website: "Some 60 m. farther south (from Agadir), at the mouth of a river known by the same name, is the roadstead of Massa, with a mosque popularly reputed the scene of Jonah's restoration to terra firma."

Page 522

Two Fishes, two Jonahs, two Agadirs?
The Jewish Encyclopedia 1901-1906 mentions rabbinic literature regarding two fishes - one male, one female - having swallowed Jonah: check out the "fish" paragraph here. Both Tarshish (Cadiz), the "Agadir" in southwestern Spain, and Agadir in Morocco likely were founded by the Phoenicians: "Cadiz bears a Phoenician name, a deformation of Gaddir (wall), which we find in the Berber city of Agadir in Morroco." source

kashbah
Wikipedia entries on Kasbah and Casbah The Casbah of Agadir as seen from above

Ighir Ufrani
a.k.a Cape Ghir, a cape north of Agadir.

Mogador herring...alimzah...tasargelt
From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica Morocco Entry: "Occasionally a small shoal (of mackarel) may be found as far south as Mogador. Soles, turbot, bream, bass, conger eel and mullet are common along the coast, and southern Morocco is visited occasionally by shoals of a large fish called the azlimzah (sciaena aquila), rough scaled and resembling a cod, and the tasargelt (Temnodon saltator), the "blue fish" of North America. Crayfish, prawns, oysters and mussels swarm in the rocky places, but the natives have no proper method of catching them, and edible crabs seem unknown. The tunny, pilchard and sardine, and a kind of shad known as the "Mogador herring," all prove at times of practical importance."

azlimzah (sciaena aquila) pic (the lower one).

tasargelt (Temnodon saltator) pic (not sure if this is the real thing!)

scruff
???

Staketsel
According to the Dutch Wikipedia and its link to the english site this means "pier". pic

lazarettes
Below-decks storage space in the stern of a vessel. [6].

mon chou
"My cabbage." A french term of affection.

Page 523

moon deck
???

lower orlop
Lowest deck of a multi-decked vessel (OED).

lateen-riggers
Boats or larger craft with triangular sails rigged fore-and-aft (picture: [7]common in the Mediterannean [8] after introduction by the Romans in the 3rd century.

Page 524

exhilirated Second occurrence of this misspelling of exhilarated.

Piazza Grande
The central square in many Italian cities.

Denza
Cf page 353. Luigi Denza (1846-1922), Italian composer, most famous for his "Funiculi, funicula".

Antonio Smareglia

Italian opera composer (1854-1929).

Annotation Index