collected annotations to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow

Auschwitz Largest of the Nazi extermination camps, located 150 miles from Warsaw in Poland. Built in 1940 as a concentration camp, gas chambers were added in 1941. It is estimated that 1.5 million European Jews, Russian prisoners of war and gypsies died here; 666 Phrase: Auschwitz \Link: page:1

Braun,__Wernher_von_(1923-77) German rocket engineer who came to the U.S. after the war; "Nature does not know extinction" 1; arm in a cast in the Harz, 237; "They've already rounded up von Braun and 500 others, and interned them at Garmisch" 273; Geli's owl, 291; "how close Wernher von Braun's birthday is to the Spring Equinox" 361, 588; "the Prussian aristocrat" 402; "a palace revolt against" 416; "I couldn't go with von Braun, not to the Americans" 456 Phrase: Braun,__Wernher_von_(1923-77) \Link: page:1

Return,_Cycle_of "Nature does not know extinction, all it knows is transformation" 1; "Death is a debt to nature due" 26; "lapsing back now to green wilderness" 28; toothpaste tube "waiting now–its true return–to be melted for solder" 130; "The real movement is not from death to any rebirth. It is from death to death-transfigured" 166; "some teeming cycle of departure and return" 198; "no cycles, no returns" 318; to the Center (Hereros), 319; "men turning to coal" 351; 412; serpent eating its tail, 413; Slothrop's transmutation dream about Greta, 447; Bicycle Rider in the Sky, 501; trees growing through cracks at Peenemünde, 502; Slothrop's Rider (celestial cyclist), 509; serpentine, 520; "restore us to our Earth and to our freedom" 525; "unclipped topiary hedges, growing back into reality" 535; "a Jesuit […] here to preach, like his colleague Teilhard de Chardin, against return" 539; "at least the physical things They have taken, from Earth and from us, can be dismantled, demolished–returned to where it all came from" 540; "To affirm Their mortality is to affirm Return" 540; 560; Destiny, 576; "that familiar division between return and one-shot visitation" 584; wheels in the sky, 620; Cosmic windmill, 624; "They took us at the gates of green return" 627; "cables lay rusting across the sodden meadows, going to flakes, to ions and earth" 627; "prehistoric wastes. . .transmuted to the very substance of History" 639; windmill, 670; Serpent/Pan, 720-21; America, 722-23; 726; garbage trucks, 757; See also Counterforce; Center; excrement; mandala; serpent Phrase: Return,_Cycle_of \Link: page:1

Thermidor "Thermidor" corresponded to July in the French republican calendar adopted in 1793 during the French Revolution, which dating system was intended to replace the Gregorian calendar with a more rational system devoid of Christian associations. The Gregorian calendar was reestablished by the Napoleonic regime on January 1, 1806; Mexico recalling "the sweaty evenings of" 713 Phrase: Thermidor \Link: page:1

V-1See Rocket; [V-1 Photo] Phrase: V-1 \Link: page:1

Vishinsky,__Andrey_Yanuaryevich_(1883-1954) Soviet statesman, diplomat, and lawyer who was Stalin's chief prosecutor during the Great Purge trials in Moscow in the 1930s. A member of the Mensheviks, he joined the Communist Party in 1920. By 1940 he was a member of party's Central Committee and deputy commissar of foreign affairs; "Molotov isn't telling Vishinsky" 611 Phrase: Vishinsky,__Andrey_Yanuaryevich_(1883-1954) \Link: page:1

Vistula Vistula River is the largest river of Poland and of the Baltic Sea's drainage basin. Rising in the Beskid mountains of southern Poland, its length is 651 miles (1,047 kilometres) with a drainage basin of approximately 75,100 square miles (194,500 square kilometres). It is a waterway of great importance to the nations of eastern Europe; "was under Soviet interdiction to the [Anubis]" 489 Phrase: Vistula \Link: page:1

V-2See Rocket; [V-2 Photo] Phrase: V \Link: page:2

First instance in Gravity's Rainbow of a lifetime stylistic trait of Pynchon's: unpredictable use of Capitalization. Capitalization is usually applied to nouns, but not uniformly. Often a matter of emphasis. See Mason & Dixon for the widest use, there imitating the writing of the time in which the book is set. The use throughout all his work might indicate how well-read and influenced by works written before capitalization was standardized Pynchon is. The full rules of capitalization for English are complicated. The rules have also changed over time, generally to capitalize fewer terms; to the modern reader, an 18th century document seems to use initial capitals excessively. Wikipedia Phrase: The Evacuation \Link: page:3

Besides the normal meanings, including "theater of war", 'theatre' is the name that fireworks' organizers call a sky display. Phrase: theatre \Link: page:3

a queensize bed made of iron. Hardly made after 1900. Queen Victoria had a famous brass (and iron) one in the Crystal Palace! "Beds made of hollow tubes of steel, iron, and brass came to be manufactured in the mid 19th century. These were to be used both by soldiers and civilians. Their main advantage at that time was that unlike wooden beds, these could not be infested with bedbugs. Queen Victoria's brass bed at the Crystal Palace has been the most famous antique brass bed. By the late 19th century, metal beds were nearly out of fashion." Antique beds 1

Also, In The Odyssey, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to Persephone as the Iron Queen. Of the four gods of Empedocles' elements it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo, for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden". Wikipedia 2 Phrase: iron queen \Link: page:3

See Alpha entry, especially this re cultural meaning: The Crystal Palace made a strong impression on visitors coming from all over Europe, including a number of writers. It soon became a symbol of modernity and civilization, hailed by some and decried by others.

In What Is to Be Done?, Russian author and philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky pledges to transform the society into a Crystal Palace thanks to a socialist revolution. Fyodor Dostoevsky implicitly replied to Chernyshevsky in Notes from Underground. The narrator thinks that human nature will prefer destruction and chaos to the harmony symbolized by the Crystal Palace.

When the first major international exhibition of arts and industries was held in London in 1851, the London Crystal Palace epitomized the achievements of the entire world at a time when progress was racing forward at a speed never before known to mankind. The Great Exhibition marked the beginning of a tradition of world's fairs, which would be held in major cities all across the globe. Following the success of the London fair, it was inevitable that other nations would soon try their hand at organizing their own exhibitions. In fact, the next international fair was held only two years later, in 1853, in New York City. This fair would have its own Crystal Palace to symbolize not only the achievements of the world, but also the nationalistic pride of a relatively young nation and all that she stood for. Walt Whitman, the great American poet, wrote in "The Song of the Exposition":

That the Crystal Palace Exhibition "marked the beginning of a tradition of world's fairs" can remind that Against the Day starts at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago. More international optimism. Phrase: crystal palace \Link: page:3

Compare the narrator's discussion of William Slothrop's heretical tract "On Preterition," which argued for the holiness of the preterite, and Weisenburger's note at ²555.29-31.

A wide symbology relates to sheep in ancient art, traditions and culture. Judaism uses many sheep references including the Passover lamb. Christianity uses sheep-related images, such as: Christ as the good shepherd, or as the sacrificed Lamb of God (Agnus Dei); the bishop's Pastoral; the lion lying down with the lamb (a reference to all of creation being at peace, without suffering, predation or otherwise). Greek Easter celebrations traditionally feature a meal of Paschal lamb. Sheep also have considerable importance in Arab culture; Eid ul-Adha is a major annual festival in Islam in which a sheep is sacrificed. Herding sheep plays an important historico-symbolic part in the Jewish and Christian faiths, since Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and King David all worked as shepherds. wikipedia ³³

Sheep are often associated with obedience due to the widespread perception that they lack intelligence and their undoubted herd mentality, hence the pejorative connotation of the adjective 'ovine'. In George Orwell's satirical novel Animal Farm, sheep are used to represent the ignorant and uneducated masses of revolutionary Russia. The sheep are unable to be taught the subtleties of revolutionary ideology and can only be taught repetitive slogans such as "Four legs good, two legs bad" which they bleat in unison at rallies. The rock group Pink Floyd wrote a song using sheep as a symbol for ordinary people, that is, everyone who isn't a pig or dog. People who accept overbearing governments have been pejoratively referred to as "sheeple". wikipedia ⁴⁴ Phrase: second sheep \Link: page:3

adj. (of a mirror) having an incomplete reflective coating, so that half the incident light is reflected and half transmitted: used in optical instruments and two-way mirrors. Collins Dictionary See the splitting of light all through Against the Day, Pynchon's 2006 novel. Phrase: half-silvered \Link: page:3

as two words, this seems to refer to handheld devices in which slides were slid and viewed in 3-dimensions. Here is a version still being made ⁵view finder. "half-silvered" above seems most correct with this kind of device. Phrase: view finder \Link: page:3

A Pynchonian leitmotif. The linearity of lining up has resonances throughout his work, articulated most straightforwardly in Against the Day, which starts with "Single up all Lines!", and perhaps dealt with most profoundly in Mason & Dixon, a novel about creating the "Mason & Dixon line". Phrase: They pass in line \Link: page:3

Pynchon's first published story is called The Small Rain. See his remarks on rain in fiction in Slow Learner. Phrase: Rain comes down \Link: page:3

Naptha is the flammable liquid obtained from the distillation of coal and used to fire gaslights and heaters. … Phrase: naptha winters \Link: page:3

Rolling stock is the collective term that describes all the vehicles which move on a railway. Phrase: rolling-stock absence \Link: page:3

Theoretical state when no molecules move. ⁶Zero. State of entropy, a key concept of Thomas Pynchon's. See early story, Entropy in Slow Learner. Phrase: Absolute Zero \Link: page:3

'secret cities of poor', deep under these fallen girders. Places that have never been spoken of, yet exist. Lower than Low-lands. Later in Pynchon's world,in other books, Mason & Dixon and Against the Day, we will travel deeper underground, to places with no names we know, it seems. See a "progressive knotting into", 3.26 in GR. Phrase: places whose names he has never heard \Link: page:3

See "wall of death" later in Gravity's Rainbow. A-and in Against the Day. Phrase: the walls break down \Link: page:3

CRYSTAL

Crystal Palace 3; "the fall of a" Phrase: CRYSTAL \Link: page:3

dreams/dreaming Pirate's, 3-4; "rosy as a bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection" 5; "Pirate had dreamed these very words" 13; "blinking through an overlay of dream" 29; Pointsman's, 36-38; "Silence comes in, sculptured by spoken dreams" 49; Jessica's, 53; of peacetime, 58; Sodium Amytal-induced toilet adventure, 60-71; "the little baby they dream now of sitting near" 111; Mrs. Quoad's, 119; "after a dream" 121; the Empire's "dreamless version of the real" 129; "the children are away dreaming, but the Empire has no place for dreams" 135; Pointsman's, 137-38; Pointsman's of the Minotaur, 142; Nora DodsonTruck's dreams of flight, 146; Treacle's dreams of flight, 146; Leni's,155-56, 156-58; Leni's dream of flight, 159; "you go from dream to dream inside me" 177; Stalin's pathological, 189; "that touch on the sleeves of his dreams" 209; Pudding's, 232; Slothrop dreaming in German, 240; Slothrop's dream of old pals while in Nice, 255; "[Slothrop] dozes in and out of a hallucination of Alps, fogs, abysses" 257; Slothrop dreaming of Jamf, 268; "a dream of Atlantis, of the Suggenthal" 269; Pointsman's nightmare, 272; "your biography now like any old bad dream" 277; Slothrop's dream (?), 281-83; Slothrop's "Jamf/I" dream, 286-87, 623; Enzian's "wet dream where he coupled with a slender white rocket" 297; Enzian's of an "endless North" 327; "dreaming of food, oblivion, alternate histories. . ." 336; Galina's, 341; "German dreams of the Tenth-Elegy angel" 341; Chu Piang's, 347; 355; Evil Hour, 375; "your dream of pampas and sky" 388; Slothrop's of Berkshire, 392; Alpdrucken ("Nightmare"), 394; Pökler's of rocket, 399-400; Kekule's dream of 1865, 410; Jung's "ancestral pool" 410; "Pökler dreaming about Kekule's dream" 412-13; "unrecoverable dreams" 415; Pökler's of bulb as Weissmann, 426-27 (see page 653); "City of Elves producing toy moon-rockets" 431; "Säure's on the move. . .prowling his dreams" 437; Slothrop's transmutation dream, 446-47; "ships we can dream across terrible rapids" 462; Slothrop dreaming of Llandudno, 468; Bianca "dreams often of the same journey" 471; oneiric (dreamlike), 475; "Where was anybody that summer before the War? Dreaming." 475; of battles survived, 490; Slothrop's of Bianca, 492; "Givin' all m'dreams away" 522; Slothrop's of Tantivy, 551-52; "Slothrop dreams" 552; "your saddest dreams" 577; "bursts of destroying beauty there for his dreams to work on" 578; "the dramatic connections that were really all there, in his dreams" 579; Slothrop's of Zwölfkinder and Bianca, 609; "Solange" dreaming of Ilse, 610; Slothrop's of Bette Davis and Margaret Dumont, 619; Pirate's of windmills, 620; "dreaming at the last instant of who can say what lifted smock" 625; Mexico's of Jessica (in the song), 627; "what ladies in black appeared in his dreams" 629; "It wasn't a dream. Don't you wish it could be." 668; Christian's of Maria, 673; "of assassinations, of plots against good and decent men" 689; Dark Dream, 697; keying waves, 699; Beaver's, 708; Gottfried's single dream, 721; "I dream of discovering the edge of the World" 722; "of rendezvous, of cosmic trapeze acts" 723; the Rocket "must answer to a number of different shapes in the dreams of those who touch it" 727; "dream-caressed" 730; "Strung Into the Apollonian Dream" 754; Gottfried, 754; "human figure, dreaming of an early evening in each great capital" 760; See also Jung, Carl Phrase: dreams/dreaming \Link: page:3

film/cinema_references "velveteen darkness" 3; "[Pirate] learned [his grin] at the films" 32; "what Hollywood likes to call a 'cute meet'" 38; "the cinema kiss never completed" 49; "horror-movie devilfish" 51; Fay Wray look, 57; "Disneyfied look" 70; "a De Mille set" 71; Katje, 92, 112; paranoia in movie theatres, 114; "the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here" 135; "medium shot" 142; "All of us watching some wry newsreel, the beam from the projector falling milky-white. . .the manly crepe of an overseas cap knifing forward into the darkened cinema" 150; Sachsa seance, 152; special effects, 159; "[Katje] evaporates before the question, re-forms in another part of the room" 194; "this wardrobe here's mostly props" 195; Katje's cinema werewolf transformation, 196; Marx-Brothers-like episode with Seltzer bottle, 197; "from a German camera angle" 229; Zootsuit Zanies, 251; soundtrack (clarinets, guitars and mandolins), 255; "Saturday-afternoon western movies" 264; "Wild West movie" 338; "Nazi movie villain" 360; extras, 374; "Leaps broad highways in a single bound!"--380; camera angle (opening of Fierro film), 386; "paracinematic lives" 388; soundtrack ("windy strings and reed sections"), 398; "couldn't even go to the movies" 402; filming gauges on rocket flights, 406-07; successive stills, 407; "the moving images of a daughter" 422; 423; Ilse "has persisted beyond her cinema mother, beyond film's end" 429; "cue calls for the titanic sets of her dreams" 446; "Goebbels' private collection" 461; "that same nacreous wrinkling the films use to suggest rain out a window" 471; "slouched alone in your own seat" 472; "watching Allied footage for what could be pulled and worked into newsreels to make the Axis look good" 473; "Looks like German movies have warped other outlooks around here too." 474; faces "very smooth, film-star polished" 477; "filthy movies are showing in the boiler room" 490; "But mistakes are part of it too–everything fits. One sees how it fits, ja? learns patterns, adjusts to rhythms, one day you are no longer an actor, but free now, over on the other side of the camera." 494;"silent-movie style looking to strangle" 495; cartoon-y, 498; "Dillinger, at the end, found a few seconds' strange mercy in the movie images that hadn't quite yet faded from his eyeballs" 516; "gobbles Pervitin like popcorn at the movies" 522; "film and calculus, both pornographies of flight" 523; "this ain't the fuckin' movies" 527; "not yet" 527-28; "There's the son of Frankenstein in it, too. I wish we could have more direct" 536; "a government newsreel, FROM CLOAK AND DAGGER TO CROAK AND STAGGER" 542; "another long night of cinema without schedule" 542; "as the camera moves in for a close-up" 543; "My dream is to bring all these kids. . .out to Hollywood" 559; Klein-Rogge, Rudolph (actor - Pökler's favorite), 578; "movie queens" 586; "frames per century" 612; "a bad cinema spring" 628; chase scenes, 198, 308-13, 334,637; "comic Nazi routine" 633; 641; "we're strangers at the films, condemned to separate rows aisles, exits, homegoings" 663; Floundering Four, 674-80; "Yes, it is a movie! Another WWII situation comedy" 692; "Their Movieola viewer" 694; "as nasal and debonair as a movie star" 697; "moves image to image" 721; "black and white film images" 723; documentary style, 738; "subdebs just out the movies" 741; sound editing, 745; Chase Music, 751; "a whole movie-cue of witnesses" 755; "old fans who've always been at the movies" 760; (See also actors/directors; King Kong; movies; theatre; Ufa-theatre) Phrase: film/cinema_references \Link: page:3

Hydra-Phänomen German: "Hydra-phenomenon"; Hydra was the mythical snake which Hercules had to kill as one of his twelve labors. As soon as he cut off one of its heads, two shot up in its place; how Slothrop's plucking-of-self would be classified "were it not for the complete absence of hostility" 712

Phrase: Hydra-Phänomen \Link: page:3

Kurzweg,__Prof.-Dr._Hermann Kurzweg came to Peenemünde in 1937 as head of research and chief assistant to engineer Dr. Rudolph Hermann, working in wind-tunnel research; he was instrumental in refining the design for the A4; Achtfaden "always worked out of [his] shop" 455 Phrase: Kurzweg,__Prof.-Dr._Hermann \Link: page:3

labyrinth "a progressive knotting into" 3; "labyrinthine," 10; "The rooms are triangular, spherical, walled up into mazes." 82; "labyrinth of conditioned-reflex work," 88; "this inexhaustively knotted victim" 93; "what there is of labyrinth collapsing in rings outward," 143; "soft, confusing, womanly tunnel-systems that must stretch back for miles" 195; "We are obsessed with building labyrinths, where before there was open plain and sky." 264; "El laberinto de tu incertidumbre," 383; "brick labyrinth," 384; "your labyrinth walls," 388; "as much labyrinth as required between himself and the inconveniences of caring," 428; "labyrinthine path," 537; "maps of his revetments and labyrinths," 672; "too finely labyrinthine, for either category to have much hegemony any more," 681; See also Daedalus; Thesean brushings; Weaving the Web Phrase: labyrinth \Link: page:3

naphtha 3; a colorless, volatile petroleum distillate, usually an intermediate product between gasoline and benzene, used as a solvent and as a fuel – Webster's; aka lighter fluid Phrase: naphtha \Link: page:3

Preterite Calvinist/Puritan doctrine of the Elect (the chosen) and the Preterite (the passed-over, the damned); "second sheep" 3; "a new preterition abroad in England" 15; Dodoes, 108-11; "But if [the Dutch settlors] were chosen to come to Mauritius, why had they also been chosen to fail, and leave? Is that a choosing, or is it a passing over? Are they Elect, or are they Preterite, and doomed as Dodoes?" 110; "men you have seen on foot and smileless in the cities but forgot" 136; at Rathenau seance, 163; coal-tars as preterite dung, 166; "his poor sheep" 233; "the multitudes who are passed over by God and History" 299; "In preterite line they have pointed her here" 316; "Elite and Preterite, we move through a cosmic design of darkness and light" 495; "they dissolve now into the swarm. . .of this dancing Preterition" 548; "The successful loner was only the other part of it: the last piece to the jigsaw puzzle, whose shape had already been created by the Preterite" 554; Judas, 555; On Preterition, 555; "in their slick persistence and our preterition" 590; "rubbers yellow with preterite seed, Kleenex wadded to brain shapes hiding preterite snot, preterite tears" 626; 667; 668; "the glozing neuters of the world" 677; "the Humility, among the gray and preterite souls" 742; See also Hand of Providence/God; Puritans Phrase: Preterite \Link: page:3

Schußstelle_3 95; German: "firing site"; in Holland on the North Sea coast, near The Hague; moved, 104; the allies were after it, 105; "why did [Katje] leave?" 107; See also Lüneburg Heath Phrase: Schußstelle_3 \Link: page:3

theatre "it's all theatre" 3; "theatrically bitter" 133; "magnificent stone theatre" 148; "theatre nothing but Walter really look at head phony angle" 152; "just down the street from the theatre" 174; "you're in the wrong theatre of operations" 201; "every occupation town in the Theatre" 247; "only elaborate theatre to fool you" 267; "tears which are not all theatre" 302; "Perhaps it's theater" 326; "elaborate piece of theatre" 352; street-theatre, 399; "Mediterranean theatre" 438; "under a theatre marquee whose sentient bulbs may have looked on" 464; "this War. . .was all theatre" 521; "the elaborate theatrical foofooraw of Mob 'n' Masons" 586; "all become theatre" 722; "not without theatre" 743; "above the roof of this old theatre" 760; See also actors/directors; film/cinema references; King Kong; movies; Ufa-theatre Phrase: theatre \Link: page:3

Zero "try to bring events to Absolute Zero" 3; "a silent extinction beyond the zero" 85; in connection with Slothrop's deconditioning, 85; between waking & sleeping, 119; "each time has taken a little more of the Zero into herself" 150; "Absolute Comfort" 155; "as the pure light of the zero comes nearer" 159; Ideology of, 218; 223; "The German inflation. . .zeros strung end to end from here to Berlin." 258; Final Zero, 319-20; "zero at the top of the world" 340; 345; Enzian closest to, 404; "signal zero" 404; 406; 421; Ground Zero, 424; 451; "Zero up to Mach 6." 454; zeroing in, 521; Japanese Zeros (fighter planes), 672, 690, 692; "zero indifference" 714; See also nihilism; vacuum; Void Phrase: Zero \Link: page:3

Cf. the rationalization of choice and similar phrasing in Against the Day, pynchon wiki p. ⁷10 Phrase: getting narrower…cornering tighter and tighter \Link: page:4

1. a procession, in single file, of merchants or pilgrims 2) a

procession of mules, camels or certain other animals. Sources: Online dictionary and wikipedia. 3) Caravan is a song by Van Morrison included on his 1970 album, Moondance. ⁸Caravan Pilgrim has Pynchonian resonances, especially in Against the Day. A-And, once again, notice the singleing up of lines. Phrase: caravan \Link: page:4

1. n. An ornament, such as a rosette or knot of ribbon, usually

worn on the hat as a badge. [Alteration of obsolete cockard , from French.]

1. Operational code name for Allied deception operations intended

to draw attention away from Normandy prior to D-Day ⁹⁵

Cf. pun: cock aid, esp. as Slothrop's 'condition' within Gravity's Rainbow is revealed. Phrase: cockade \Link: page:4

cockades are usually brightly colored. Lead is not.

Lead is a malleable toxic metallic element, bluish-white in color that tarnishes to a dull gray. ¹⁰Lead

Lead is the only currency-carrying element which does not absorb nor emit heat. Entropic, so to speak. Another resonance for "toward the zero"?

Lead is what bullets are made of. Phrase: the color of lead \Link: page:4

More forced linearity. Phrase: corridors straight and functional \Link: page:4

Shays Shays's Rebellion (August 1786-February 1787) was an uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and harsh economic conditions. Led by Daniel Shays (1747-1825), the rebellion was decisively defeated on February 4, but it did result in the passage of laws easing the economic condition of debtors; "fought the federal troops across Massachusetts" 268 Phrase: Shays \Link: page:4

ss "cast-iron pulleys whose spokes are shaped like Ss" 4; 3-sigma, 40, 523, 635, 709; "sibilant weave" 152; "S'd against the S of himself" 198; "Old Norse rune for S" 206; ssörrender, 230; sour stuff (oxygen), 240; Esso, 240; tunnels, 299; double-integral sign, 300-01; "Summe, Summe" 300; "Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep" 302; S-curve, 380; double-summing, 411; Scatotechnic Snipes, 451; Sickly Smile, 534; Special Services, 558; Shufflin' Sam, 558; "curving through the ogival opening" 573; "Yess, yess" 590; "silver straw" 613; "screen-door salesman" 665; "the invisible SS" 666; Sniveling Slothrop, 679; Scatterbrained Suicidekicks, 691; Sound Shadow, 695, 711; Sentimental Surrealist, 696; Subsequent Sin, 722; Spaceman Smile, 732; See also chess; Rossini Phrase: ss \Link: page:4

Pirate's name derives from Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Pirates of Penzance, in which the hero's nurse has made a fateful error in carrying out her employer's instructions: Instead of having the boy apprenticed to a (ship's) pilot, he was apprenticed to a pirate, hence a "pirate `prentice." The name, though, is not simply a fortuitous pun: In her error, the nurse has lost a message, like the hare of Herero myth, and thus guaranteed her young charge's preterition. (There are also connections here to the theme of "communications entropy," which is central to The Crying of Lot 49 and the short story "Entropy.") Phrase: His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice. \Link: page:5

seasons, to an impasto, feet thick, of unbelievable black topsoil

Didn't notice 'scumbled' first time round, I was going too fast. Second read I looked it up. Scumbled? Isn't that some sort of painting [technique? Pynchon make a mistake there? Mean to say scrambled? Hmmmmmmmm. Then I thought of the 'knives' bit, wondered if artists might use a ¹¹palette knife to do this scumbling business. A Google search for "scumble knife palette " found me this:

"Hard impasto ridges left by the edge of the knife provided the texture I needed to bring the waves crashing in."

A-and the wonderful phrase, "knives of the seasons" embodies another lifelong deep theme in Pynchon's work: that the 'wheeling' of time [see later in Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day], the cycle of nature, is an ineluctable good thing, even as it knifes us, ravages, us. It thickens us, impasto-like, gives us topsoil in our characters, so to speak.

"To blur the outlines of: a writer who scumbled the line that divides history and fiction."

Apt example! Phrase: all got scumbled together, eventually, by the knives of the \Link: page:5

Bloat,_Teddy 5; rooms with Pirate and friend of Tantivy; microfilms Slothrop's map (then gives film to Mexico who takes it to Pointsman), 17; 34; 181; gives Slothrop a crab to distract the octopus, 186-87; discussed, 192-93 Phrase: Bloat,_Teddy \Link: page:5

Feel,_Osbie 5; cultivates pharmaceutical plants on the roof of Pirate's maisonette; eggs to golfballs, 9; doper at White Visitation – "the house idiot- savant" 92; with Pirate, 111-12; 533; Doper's Greed - film with 2 cowboys + midget, 534; stoned with aura, 536; "'In the Parliament of Life, the time comes, simply, for a division. We are now in the corridors we have chosen, moving toward the Floor….'" 536; in Marseilles, 620; Porky Pig tattoo, 638; [Is that Pynchon inside his own novel?] Phrase: Feel,_Osbie \Link: page:5

G-5 125; Weisenburger quoting A.M. Taylor: "that section of the Army set up to take over local government in lands occupied by invasion forces. Other sections are G-1 personnel, G-2 Intelligence, G-3 Training and Plans, G-4 Supply and Evacuation."; 290; 644;

Phrase: G-5 \Link: page:5

Immachination/inanimateness "[Pirate's] skull feels made of metal." 5; "You will come to understand that between the two points, in the five minutes, [the rocket] lives an entire life." 209; "we're all such mechanical men. Doing our jobs. That's all we are." 216; Cybernetic Tradition, 238; robobopsters, 260; doll with human hair, 282; "orangutan on wheels […] followed by a tiny black crow […] also on wheels" 282; Articles of Immachination, 297; Rocket Limericks, 305 07, 311; "Tchitcherine, who is more metal than anything else. Steel teeth wink as he talks. Under his pompadour is a silver plate. Gold wirework threads in three-dimensional tattoo among the fine wreckage of cartilage and bone inside his right knee joint" 337; "Pökler was an extension of the Rocket, long before it was ever built" 402; "'move beyond life, toward the inorganic'" 580; "Bicycle riders ratcheted by, skeleton functional as their machines" 611;"His guide is a kind of squat robot, dark gray plastic with rolling headlamp eyes." 645; "French refugee kid, funny haircut with the ears perfectly outlined in hair that starts abruptly a quarter-inch strip of bare plastic skin away" 675; "Marcel, a mechanical chessplayer [with] exquisite 19th-century brainwork" 675; "Maybe there is a Machine to take us away, take us completely, suck us out through the electrodes out of the skull 'n' into the Machine and live there forever with all the other souls it's got stored there." 699; "a think matrix of wires, forming a rather close-set coordinate system over the Imipolectic Surface, whereby erectile and other commands could be sent to an area quite specific" 699-700; "What has actually grown itself a skin of Imipolex G" 700; "army surgeons and dentists will bond and hammer patent steel for life into [Tchitcherine's] suffering flesh […] his initiation into the bodyhood of steel" 702; Stefan Utgarthaloki: "suave metal husband" 716;"this most immachinate of techniques, the Rocket" 728; "The golden hairs on his back, alloyed German gold" 750; "The two, boy and Rocket, concurrently designed. Its steel hindquarters bent so beautifully" 750-51; [Lang's Metropolis]; See also Katspiel; Marcel the Mechanical Chessplayer at Floundering Four; Plasticman; ratchet; Rocketman Phrase: Immachination/inanimateness \Link: page:5

Prentice,__Capt._Geoffrey_"Pirate" 5-7; 42 years old in '45; lives in maisonette in Chelsea, works for Special Operations Executive (SOE), aka the "Firm"; works with Teddy Bloat; dreaming, 3-4; message from Katje by V-2, 11; "getting inside the fantasies of others" 11-16; "homeopathic doses of peace" 16; retrieves graphite cylinder ("windburned face, big mean mother"), 20; feels Mexico is being used by Them, 35; affair with Scorpia Mossmoon, 35-36, 638; decodes message from rocket using his semen, 71-72; brought Katje to White Visitation, 106; 274; 536; at Convention/Garden of double agents, 537; "by the time you get any summary, the whole thing will have changed" 541; "This is one of his own in progress." 543; with Katje at double-agent convention, 545-48; "I can repeat patterns" 546; How I Came to Love the People, 547; going to Berlin, 619; hasn't lived other's fantasies since VE Day, 620; visited by Mexico, 637; 657; and James Jello, 698; (Although it seems most likely that his name is connected to Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, where the hero Frederic is "'prenticed to a pirate," it has been pointed out, by Frank Lynch, that "Pirate Prentice" is an anagram of "Preterite Panic." - In the interests of full disclosure…) Phrase: Prentice,__Capt._Geoffrey_"Pirate" \Link: page:5

S.O.E. 5; Special Operations Executive; aka the "Firm" 12; 32; Pirate "browned-off with" 270; "no one has ever left the Firm alive" 543; 620; [About] Phrase: S.O.E. \Link: page:5

Throsp,_Corydon 5; erected maisonette where Pirate and Bloat live; cultivated pharmaceutical plants on the roof; medieval fantasies, 10 Phrase: Throsp,_Corydon \Link: page:5

Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at ¹⁵10.14. Double-helix structure like a mandala, pervasive in GR: "Mandala" is an ancient Sanskrit word meaning "sacred circle that protects the soul." It also refers to the sacred cosmograms that serve as core symbols of all cultures. Westerners have been fascinated for centuries about the mandalas of the Hindu-Buddhist cultures of Asia, most often painted geometric diagrams of great beauty and sophistication, that draw the viewer into a realm of balance, harmony, and calm. But such diagrams are actually architectural blueprints of the purified realm of bliss that we can only realize through enlightenment. They represent three-dimensional spaces of personal and communal exaltation, palaces for the regal confidence of love, compassion, and universal satisfaction of self and other. Understanding their role in anchoring the world-picture of a culture or a person provides a new insight into the "mandalas" of our own culture - the national space anchored by the Washington monument and its environs, or the personal cosmological space anchored by the models of the solar system, the DNA double-helix molecule, and the atom. ¹⁶Mandala

A recent scientific magazine also had an essay [citation needed] on the similarity of the double-helix sructure and the structure of the mandala. A-and, GR, containing mandalas, has been argued to be structured like a mandala. SPOILER of upcoming GR tropes: "Slothrop finds mandalas, sees mandalas in the sky and all around him, and becomes a mandala himself". "mandalas are part of a spiritual or mythic panoply"… From Thomas Pynchon, The Art of Illusion by David Cowart, p. 126.

Cf. p. 209, Mason & Dixon: " oblique angles with all meridians and that is a spiral coiling round the poles but never reaching them."…

Cf. V. where the isle of Malta is also likened to a sort of mandala. Phrase: a spiral ladder \Link: page:6

Ackeret,_Prof._J. Swiss rocket engineer who did the early studies of relativistic rocket mechanics, including important paper, "Theory of Rockets," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 6, 1947; "You have memorized Ackeret […] But the terror will not go away" 452 Phrase: Ackeret,_Prof._J. \Link: page:6

BOQ 6; bachelor officers' quarters Phrase: BOQ \Link: page:6

Brennschluss 6; German: "end of burning"; end of rocket's ascent when fuel is cut-off and it gives way to gravity; "a ritual of love" 222-23; "Rocket's. . .feminine counterpart" 223; 239; "The moving vehicle is frozen, in space, to become architecture, and timeless. It was never launched. It will never fall" 301; "for every firing site" 302; "of the Sun" (Sound-Shadow), 711; 759 Phrase: Brennschluss \Link: page:6

M.I._6 592; British Military Intelligence, overseas operations; [MORE] Phrase: M.I._6 \Link: page:6

rainbow the rising sun striking the rocket's exhaust, 6; "his rainbowed Valkyrie over Peenemünde" 151; "all around them were clouds, rainbows, drops of fire" 160; "the greengrocer is wishing on a rainbow today" 175; "the rainbow edges of what is almost on him" 203; "a rainbow-striped dirndl skirt" 208; "they move forever under it. . .as if it were the Rainbow" 209; "a peacock, courting, fanning his tail … she saw it in the colors that moved in the flame as it rose off the platform, scarlet, orange, iridescent green" 223; "wild as a rainbow" 369; "the rainbow edge of the sound" 488; "It's a long rainbow, mostly […] indigo and Kelly green" 524; "To purity of light–of bonds that sing,/And whips that trail their spectra as they fall" 532-33; Osbie "a sunburst in primary colors spiking out from his head" 536; "Slothrop sees a very thick rainbow" 626; "rainbow of sentinel ladies" 637; "beautiful Serpent, its coils in rainbow lashings" 721; "the great rainbow plumes" 722; "serpent coils that lash above the surface of the Earth in rainbow light" 726 Phrase: rainbow \Link: page:6

Rocket incoming mail, 6; A4, 8, 396, 406, 411, 464; farting buzzbombs, 21; "explode first. . .then you hear them coming in" 23; "slender church steeples" 29 (& 624); "a piece of time neatly snipped out" 48; "a rocket has suddenly struck" 59; V-1 and V-2, 86; "the sounds of V-1 and V-2, one the reverse of the other" 144; premonitions in Psi section, 146; "rocket-mysticism" 154; "between the two points, in the five minutes, it lives an entire life." 209; assembly at Mittelwerke, 304; "Germans […] who called the rocket Der Phau ["the peacock"], 223; "terrible passage reduced. . .to bourgeois terms" 239; Slothrop's discovery of blueprint, 242; and manhood, 324; "hidden inside the summer Zone, the Rocket is waiting" 359; 5 launching switch positions, 361; cult of A4 (A: "aggregate"), 391; Pökler's dreams of, 399; leading to freedom of outerspace, 400; money v. dreams, 400; Pökler as an extension of, 402; as fat Japanese arrow, 403; A3, 406; growing towards a predestined shape (Schicksal), 416; A5, 416; mapped on to face, 423; A4 test sites moved to Blizna, Poland in '43 - Sarnaki is Ground Zero, 424; problem rockets–"reluctant virgins" 426; 10K pounds sterling, 438; "half bullet, half arrow" 453; charisma of, 464; "the kingly voice of the Aggregate" 470; Rocket Noon, 500; fins=mandala, 563 (illus. 624); "The sand-colored churchtops […] like rocket fins guiding the streamlined spires" 624; "A4. . .concealed behind an uncrossable wall that separated real pain and terror from summoned deliverer." 666; 673; firing vectors, 706; "Rocket state-cosmology" 726; "Rocket as Torah" 727; "an evil Rocket for the World's suicide" 727; "it comes as the Revealer" 728; Goebbels' "avenger" 747; origin of countdown, 753; See also V2 Page - very good; Schwarzgerät [V-1 Photo] [V-2 Photo] Phrase: Rocket \Link: page:6

Pirate's decision after a paragraph on the inevitablity of the rocket's flight can remind one of a famous Buddhist sutra on picking a strawberry: The Sweetest Strawberry Buddha told a parable in a sutra: A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted! -Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith 6

Phrase: Pick bananas \Link: page:7

God "God has plucked [the rocket] for him, out of its airless sky, like a steel banana" 8; "wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier" 9; "Putting control inside was ratifying what de facto had happened–that you had dispensed with God." 30; "every true god must be both organizer and destroyer" 99; "tried to cage his old gods, snare them in words" 99; Dodoes "so ugly as to embody argument against a Godly creation" 110; "For as much as [Dodoes] are the creatures of God, and have the gift of rational discourse" 111; "God could not be that cruel" 111; "when the land was still free […] and the presence of the Creator much more direct" 214; "the numinous certainty of" 242; "his own WASPs in buckled black, who heard God clamoring to them in every turn of a leaf" 281; "multitudes passed over by God and History" 299; "Ndjambi Karunga and the Christian God were too far away. There was no difference between the behavior of a good and the operations of pure chance" 323; "Using a non-Arabic alphabet is felt to be a sin against" 354; "Will of God Theory" 362; "God's indifferent sunlight in all its bleaching and terror" 364; "Each plot carries its signature. Some are God's, some masquerade as God's" 464; "God's poorest and most panicked creature" 465; canine theology of "the remembered image of one human" 614; "God is who knows their number. Atropos is who severs them to different lengths. So, God under the aspet of Atropos, she who cannot be turned" 643; "Procalowski-down-out-of-the sky-in-a-machine" 672; "God, death, nothingness, redemption, salvation" 693; "What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?" 699; "Wimpe: 'I mean theophosphate, Vaslav,' indicating the Presence of God" 702; "God's spoilers. […] It is our mission to promote death." 720; "By all the holy names of God" 734; "The Ravens of Death have now tasted of the Poison of God" 748; "'God sent out a pulse of energy into the void. […] To return to God, the soul must negotiate each of the Sephiroth, from ten back to one." 753; "the Tree of Life. It is also the body of God" 753; See also Christianity; Mythology; Theophile Phrase: God \Link: page:8

Betty Grable actually became a pin-up favorite in 1943 (not 1944), when she had a photo series released. Although she had been featured in various films since the late 1920s, she first became a major box office attraction with the 1940 film Down Argentine Way. The poster is also an example of the motif of the turning head that recurs throughout Gravity's Rainbow. Correspondent Hazen Bob Dixon notes that Grable was actually pregnant when the picture was taken, which is why her back was turned in the first place. The story is plausible, since Grable did give birth to a daughter (by her husband, band leader Harry James) in March 1944; however, there are other versions of how the image came to be taken. Phrase: Miss Grable \Link: page:9

In other words, Peacetime, when military personnel will again wear civilian clothes ("civvies"). George Formby had a postwar film titled George in Civvy Street (1946). See note at

Bloat "Gobbitch" comes from the archaic word "gobbet," which Webster's New World Dictionary defines as "a fragment or bit, especially of raw flesh." The names "Pox" and "Bloat" are obvious enough, but "DeCoverley" comes from Sir Roger Decoverley, the prototypical country squire created by Addison and Steele for the Spectator and named in turn for a country reel dance. Overall, the names suggest another version of the "Whole Sick Crew" of Pynchon's V. "Snipe" (backbite, take potshots) and "shaft" (undercut, screw over) are what these men are presumably assigned to do to others in their various bureaucratic jobs and what they do in conversations at the eponymous pub. Phrase: -19 Bartley Gobbitch, DeCoverley Pox . . . SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy \Link: page:9

More is Reed?. A saxophone is a single reed instrument. Phrase: -15 Maurice "Saxophone" Reed \Link: page:9

A snipe is naval slang for a member of the engineering crew on a ship. Historically, there was always tension between snipes and the deck crew. ²http://oldsnipe.com/SnipeBegin.html

shaft: Any sensible canal boater carries a wooden pole on the cabin top, in order to punt the boat afloat again when it runs aground, and the most suitable length just happens to be about ten feet. It will normally be about two inches in diameter, and usually made of a hard wood. However, the working boatmen of old called it a 'shaft', never a 'pole', and the term continues amongst experienced boaters today.³http://www.grannybuttons.com/granny_buttons/2004/04/define_sh aft.html Phrase: the legend SNIPE AND SHAFT [as a pub sign] \Link: page:9

A whiskey. A sexual pun. Vat 69 whisky is a scotch blended whisky. In 1882 William Sanderson prepared one hundred casks of blended whiskey and hired a panel of experts to taste them. The batch from the vat with number 69 was proclaimed as the best tasting one and the famous blend got its name. The whisky was at first bottled in port wine bottles. Wikipedia Phrase: Vat 69 \Link: page:9

Correspondent Igor Zabel notes that the name of the famous mountain actually means "Virgin." Matthias Bauer adds: "The name of the mountain means virgin`` in 20th century German. Translated from Kluge Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache``, 23th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1999: originally meaning young lady, later generalized to young (unmarried) woman. Mysticism used the word for the Virgin Mary, and the meaning shifted towards young (virgin) woman."

Jungfrau is also the German for the zodiacal sign "Virgo." Another female "V." – which figures later in the story and in history. Note as well the oblique reference to Venus, the "planet of love". In astrology Venus is "fallen" in Virgo. Light. Phrase: Jungfrau \Link: page:9

The German word means virgin (or Virgin) Phrase: Jungfrau \Link: page:9

actors/directors Betty Grable, 9; W. C. Fields, 12; Cary Grant, 13, 240, 292, 294, 661, 684; George Formby, 18; Dennis Morgan, 32; Fay Wray, 57, 179, 275; Bela Lugosi, 106, 557; G. W. Pabst, 112; Ernst Lubitsch, 112; Fritz Lang, 112, 159, 578, 753; Maria Montez and Jon Hall, 121; Greta Garbo, 127, 476; Noel Coward (British playwright), 134; Walt Disney, 70,135, 680; Meriam C. Cooper, 179; Van Johnson, 182; Rudolph Valentino, 182; Bing Crosby,184; Groucho Marx, 210, 246, 278, 386, 619; Stuart Lake, 210; James Cagney, 222, 599, 684; Tom Mix, 245, 717; Shirley Temple, 24, 246, 304, 466, 493; Bob Steele, 247, 385; 386; Johnny Mack Brown, 247; Errol Flynn, 248, 381; Sydney Greenstreet, 253; John Wayne, 256; Spencer Tracy, 266; Rita Hayworth, 274, 449; Laurel and Hardy, 375, 583; Don Ameche, 381; Oliver Hardy, 381; Mickey Rooney, 382; Carmine Miranda, 383, 664; Mickey Mouse, 392; Marlene Dietrich, 393; Brigette Helm, 393-94; Asta Nielsen, 415; Carol Lombard, 445; Henry Fonda, 448; Clark Gable, 516, 577; William (Dick) Powell, 516, 622; Basil Rathbone, 534, 536; S.Z. ("Cuddles") Sakall, 534; Cecil B. DeMille, 71, 559; Henry Wilcoxon, 559; Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, 561; Audie Murphy, 563; Rudolph Klein-Rogge, 578; Brigitte Helm, 578; Bernhardt Goetzke, 579; James Mason, 592; Deanna Durbin, 599; Rin-Tin-Tin, 614; Betty Davis & Margaret Dumont, 619; Douglas Fairbanks, 637; William Bendix, 684; Sam Jaffe, 684; Arthur Kennedy, 684; Margaret O'Brien, 690; Bengt Ekerot, 755; Maria Casares, 755; See also film/cinema references; movies; theatre Phrase: actors/directors \Link: page:9

Gobbitch,_Bartley 9; at Pirate's maisonette Phrase: Gobbitch,_Bartley \Link: page:9

Pox,_DeCoverley 9; at Pirate's maisonette; with Slothrop at the Junior Anthenaeum, 21 Phrase: Pox,_DeCoverley \Link: page:9

puns_&c. Joaquin Stick, 9; "his batman, a Corporal Wayne" 11; Constant and Variable Slothrop, 27; "'Treed at last!'" 199; "It suits you" 355; "You look more like Gaucho Marx" 386; "pip, pip, old Jap" 479; "For De Mille, young fur-henchmen can't be rowing!" 559; "Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short" 591, 652; "Wilhelmets" 664; "I Ching feet" 746; Phrase: puns_&c. \Link: page:9

Reed,_Maurice_{("Saxophone")} 9; at Pirate's maisonette Phrase: Reed,_Maurice_{("Saxophone")} \Link: page:9

Snipe_and_Shaft 9; Slothrop's and Tantivy's watering hole; 19; 21 Phrase: Snipe_and_Shaft \Link: page:9

Stick,_Joaquin 9; at Pirate's maisonette Phrase: Stick,_Joaquin \Link: page:9

V.E._Day 9; Victory in Europe (May 8, 1945); "awful interface of" 80; 269; 274; 276; 288; 628 Phrase: V.E._Day \Link: page:9

It's magnificent, but it's not war. The "French observer" was Marshal Pierre Bosque. Phrase: C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre \Link: page:10

Telephones in the UK use a double-ring, sounding like bzzt-bzzt. Phrase: like a rude metal double-fart \Link: page:10

Weisenburger correctly defines "batman" (an aide assigned to a British officer) but misses Pynchon's joke: Any "batman" with the last name of "Wayne" must have the first name "Bruce"! (Alfred Appel in Nabokov's Dark Cinema also missed the joke, claiming that Pynchon was poking fun at John Wayne by demoting him to a "mere" corporal!) Phrase: his batman, a Corporal Wayne \Link: page:11

Bukhara in Uzbekistan, this city is one of the most ancient in Central Asia. According to the decree of the 4th Assembly of all-Bukhara Soviets (11-17 October, 1923), certain degrees of autonomy and administrative rights were granted to areas inhabited by Turkmens, and local dialects (eg Tajiki) were to be replaced by Turkish as the official language; "reformed Arabic scripts […] ratified at ~ in 1923" 354; [Website] Phrase: Bukhara \Link: page:11

comicbook/cartoon/fictional_characters "his batman, a Corporal Wayne" [Batman's "real-world" identity was Bruce Wayne], 11; comicbook fangs, 21; Sir Denis Nayland Smith, 83, 277-78, 592, 631, 751; Hop Harrigan, Tank Tinker, 117; "old-fashioned comical room" 122; Dumbo, 135; Donald Duck, 146; Hansel and Gretel, 174; "comic-book colors" 186; "paint FUCK YOU in a balloon coming out the mouth of one of those little pink shepherdesses" 203; Plasticman, 206, 314, 331, 752; "he passes into a bickering of canary-yellow Borsalini, corksoled comicbook shoes with enormous round toes" 254; "this cartoon here" 263; "a Sunday-funnies dawn" 295; Rocketman, 366, 376, 379, 436, 512, 596; Captain Midnight Show, 375; Green Hornet, 376; "the only beings who can violate their space are safely caught and paralyzed in comic books" 379; Mickey Mouse, 392; Sundial, 472; Wilhelm Busch (cartoonist), 501; Porky Pig, 545; "comic technocracy" 579; "comic-book cats dogs and mice" 586; Bugs Bunny, 592; "comicbook-orange chunks of island" 634; Porky Pig tattoo, 638 (on Osbie Feel's stomach), 711 (on Andre Omnopon's stomach); Robin Hood, 664; Mary Marvel, Wonder Woman, 676; comic-book Kamikazes, 680; "down comes a comic-book guillotine on one black & white politician" 687; Crime Does Not Pay, 709; Superman, 751; The Lone Ranger & Tonto, 752; Philip Marlowe, 752; Submariner, 752; Jimmy Olson, 752; See also Byron the Bulb; Floundering Four; Komical Kamikazes; Plasticman; film/cinema references Phrase: comicbook/cartoon/fictional_characters \Link: page:11

excrement "penguin shit" 11; "shit, money and the Word" 28; Pointsman's foot in toilet bowl, 42; "street excrement" 46; cat shit, 51; Slothrop's toilet adventure, 64-67; copromancy, 65; "jellied textures of human shit" 79; "too much shit in these streets" 135; "piss-swollen men" 136; "excremental kisses" 150; "Earth's excrement" (coal tars), 166; "preterite dung" 166; "footprints of shit the color of themselves" 173; "seagull shit" 203; "stained with genuine SS shit and piss" 211; Pudding and Domina Nocturna, 234-36; "turds on the Bokhara rug" 246; "shit-eating grin" 253; "feelings about blackness were tied to feelings about shit, and feelings about shit were tied to feelings about putrefaction and death" 276; Deutschmarks used as toilet paper, 284; "naughty bathroom moment" 296; "Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul. . .where a fellow can. . .enjoy the smell of his own shit." 317; coprophilia & urolagnia, 319; Outase (one of the many Herero words for "shit"), 325; "you vill shit now?" 360;"oozing shit that burns like acid" 360; "shit leaking out of him at gallons per hour" 364; King Kong taking a shit, 368; "pleasant anticipation" 405; baby Ilse's, 418; Pökler at ground zero, 426; Dora camp, 432; "pissing in the center grooves of cobbled alleys" 434; "eyes like two pissholes in a snowbank" 437; "diamonds in the shit of smugglers" 438; turd-shaped monoliths, 451; "Little piece of Jewish shit" 478; giant turds, 485; Bianca, 531; 535; "never-slackening shit" 586; "Europe died meanly in its own wastes" 616; "trying to take a quiet shit" 631; Mexico pissing on Mossmoon's table, 636 (aka "Urinating Incident" 710); "ladylike turds" 639; "prehistoric wastes" 639; "urolagnia jokes" 649; Byron down the toilet, 652; "deep feelings about shit" 654; "Thanatz's asshole tightens a notch." 666; "Shit 'n' Shinola" 687; Tranvestites' Toilet, 688; "shit. . .is the color white folks are afraid of" 688; "put the fuse out. . .right in the stream of piss" 689; rat turds, 692; They interdict the toilet, 694; "Bad Shit" 713; "consecrated to shit" 722; "dark figure with a stream of luminescent piss" 739; "fields of shit" 739; fart-driven siren ring, 740; "not one trickle of shit, Liebchen?" 757; See also Toiletship, holy shit Phrase: excrement \Link: page:11

Iasi 11; county in NE Romania and also the capital city of that county, bordering Russia. During WWII, the city's Jewish population was massacred by the Germans. See also Codreanu Phrase: Iasi \Link: page:11

Magna_Carta The charter of English liberties granted by King John in 1215 under threat of civil war and reissued with alterations in 1216, 1217, and 1225; "Teach the German beast about the" 125 Phrase: Magna_Carta \Link: page:11

Magyars Transylvanian, 11; 549; aka Hungarians Phrase: Magyars \Link: page:11

Napolean_Bonaparte_(1769-1821) French general who was first consul and then emperor of the French, carried out many far-reaching reforms and through military force attempted to expand France's dominion (though he left France smaller than it had been at the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789). Until the end of the Second Empire under his nephew Napoleon III he was hailed as one of history's great heroes; "hats with and without Ns on them" 664 Phrase: Napolean_Bonaparte_(1769-1821) \Link: page:11

narodnik From "narod" - people. Idealistic movement among Russian intellectuals in the post-emancipation period of the 19th century. They quit their urban life and attempted to "go to the people". Establishing themselves in villages, they tried to be of use to the peasantry, to get them into motion, but the peasants were generally suspicious of outsiders from other orders of society. Their politics were greatly influenced by the works of Karl Marx; "No, they are making believe to be narodnik, but I know, they are of Iasi, of Codreanu" 11 Phrase: narodnik \Link: page:11

vampires "Transylvanian Magyars, they know spells" 11; "Roger […] hunched Dracula-style inside his Burberry" 37; "shining the light up from under his chin to highlight the vampire face he thinks he's making" 44; "his most famous compatriot […] staff who swear they've seen [Rözsavölgyi] crawling headfirst down the north façade" 82; Bela Lugosi, 106; "wings of his cape reaching to enfold" 171; "dusty Dracularity, the West's ancient curse" 263; "Garlic bulbs? Wait–weren't they to keep away vampires?" 283; "Katje, the lovely little Queen of Transylvania" 283; "Slothrop puts the whip down and climbs on top, covering her with the wings of his cape" 397; "dawn is nearly here, I need my night's blood, my funding" 521; "For every kind of vampire, there is a kind of cross" 540; "trying for a Russian accent, which comes out like Bela Lugosi" 557; "holding up the mandala, cross to vampire" 560; "a pregnant Lugosi pause" 561; Slothrop, 629; "it's your last taste of O-negative, Jackson, those fangs won't even begin to gum oatmeal" 632; "Buddy at the last minute decided to go see Dracula" 652; "vampire mosquitos" 692; "glass is a reluctant vampire" 711 Phrase: vampires \Link: page:11

Wayne,_Corporal 11; Pirate's "batman" who drives him out to a bomb hit Phrase: Wayne,_Corporal \Link: page:11

Weimar_Republic The government of Germany from 1919 to 1933, so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar from Feb. 6 to Aug. 11, 1919. It was marked by political and social turmoil, but an intellectual flowering; 155; 285; 365; 580; Weimar street urchin" 651 Phrase: Weimar_Republic \Link: page:11

To bleed [into a cup]: To let blood from; to take or draw blood from, as by opening a vein. A medical way through the 16th Century to treat some illnesses. Notice here Pynchon presents 'anxiety' as a physical illness treated in this old-fashioned discredited way (jokingly, of course). Blood-letting flourished under the theory of Humours [bodily fluids], the Four Temperaments and their corresponding liquid in the body:

In On the Temperaments Galen said an ideal temperament involved a balanced mixture of the four qualities. Galen identified four temperaments in which one of the qualities dominated. These last four, sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic, eventually became better known than the others. While the term "temperament" came to refer just to psychological dispositions, Galen used it to refer to bodily dispositions, which determined a person's susceptibility to particular diseases as well as behavioral and emotional inclinations.

Methods of treatment like blood letting, emetics and purges were aimed at expelling a harmful surplus of a humour. They remained part of mainstream Western medicine into the 16th century when William Harvey investigated the circulatory system. Phrase: to cup and bleed \Link: page:12

Non-Californians could use help with the pronunciation Joaquin = (h)wa-KEEN Phrase: walking stick \Link: page:12

Blackett,_P.M.S._(1897-1974) 12; 1932 (independent of Carl Anderson) he discovered the positron. He also pioneered research on cosmic radiation and, in 1948, won the Nobel prize for physics; "You can't run a war on gusts of emotion" Phrase: Blackett,_P.M.S._(18974) \Link: page:12

chess "the profile of a chess knight" 12; "The raggedy pawns, the disgraced bish-op and cowardly knight" 173; "Dodson-Truck is a chess fanatic" 211; "do you good to get outta that chess rut" 212; on Waxwing's card, 248; "parkbench chessplayer's gaze" 254; Wimpe's analogy: "'Think of chess […] an extravagant game of chess.[…] The queen, "the Great Catherine of the periodic table," down to the little hydrogens numerous and single-moving as pawns'" 344; chessboard of the Zone, 376; Knight, 401; 405; Weissmann & Ilse playing, 408; "present a pawn, withdraw the queen" 417; "that board and pieces and patterns. . .did come clear for him" 421; "the flesh of pieces moved in darkness and winter across the marshes and mountain chains of the board" 422; moving rookwise, 472; the Castle, 486; "knowing that Queen, Bishop and King are only splendid cripples, and pawns, even those that reach the final row, are condemned to creep in two dimensions, and no Tower will either rise or descent" 494; "knight for a bishop" 563; "the bishopwise seat behind Pirate" 575; Slothrop & Pökler playing, 576; "Slothrop flashes his white plastic knight" 602; Mravenko: "the most maniacal, systemless chess player in Central Asia" 611; "there'd always be the bit of mystery to her. Because of what he is, because of directions he can't move in" 620; (metaphorically) "The Row is enlightenment" 621; "He's a digital companion all right, everything gets either a yes or a no, and two-tone checkerboards of odd shape and texture indeed bloom in the rainy night" 663; "chess knights. . .invisible in the air" 655; Läufer (chess bishop), 666, 683; "Your objective is not the King–there is no King–but momentary targets such as the Radiant Hour" 674; Marcel: "a mechanical chess-player dating back to the Second Empire" 675; "where inside Marcel is the midget Grandmaster, the little Johann Allgeier?" 675; Marcel's "request for omnidirectional top-speed clearance" 678; See also Allgeier, Johann; Allgeyer soldiers; Grid; [Check out: Borges' - "The Game of Chess" in Dreamtigers (1964)] Phrase: chess \Link: page:12

Jacobistrasse_12 436; where Säure Bummer can be found, according to message he leaves Slothrop in white plastic chess knight; 443;

JAMF, Laszlo [Etymology of "Jamf"] Phrase: Jacobistrasse_12 \Link: page:12

Kruppingham-Jones 12; named in Pirate's song about other people's fantasies Phrase: Kruppingham-Jones \Link: page:12

Krupp_works "No matter if Girly's on my knee–If Kruppingham-Jones is late to tea," 12; "Why do you think we wanted Krupp to sell them agricultural machinery so badly?" 166; "The theory going around at the time was that Stinnes was conspiring with Krupp, Thyssen, and others to ruin the mark and so get Germany out of paying her war debts." 285; "the "Allied" planes all would have been, ultimately, IG built, by way of Director Krupp, through his English interlocks" 520; "what if it's the Krupp works in Essen, what if it's Blohm & Voss right here in Hamburg or another make-believe 'ruin,'" 521; "Russia bought from Krupp, didn't she, from Siemens, the IG…" 566; "the old Krupp works" 591; "Too many tungsten filaments would […] disturb the arrangement between General Electric and Krupp about how much tungsten carbide would be produced" 654; "KRUPPALOOMA comes this giant explosion" 690; "Utgarthaloki, an ex-member of management at the Krupp works here in Cuxhaven." 709; "the Krupp wingding" 711; "middle-line Kruppsters creak in the bowlegged velvet chairs" 712; "Nalline Slothrop just before her first martini is right here, in spirit, at this Kruppfest." 712; See also Krupp, Gustav; [Sasuly's IG Farben] Phrase: Krupp_works \Link: page:12

Webern,__Anton_(1883-1945) This Austrian composer valued the oriental qualities of brevity, objectivity and fine decoration, wishing to mirror the perfection of mountain flowers and crystal specimens. He studied under Arnold Schoenberg and adopted a strict 12-tone composition style in 1924, using the 12-note system in everything he wrote.

This rainy morning, in the quiet, it seems that Gustav's German Dialectic has come to its end. He has just had the word, all the way from Vienna along some musicians' grapevine, that Anton Webern is dead. "Shot in May, by the Americans. Senseless, accidental if you believe in accidents–some mess cook from North Carolina, some late draftee with a.45 he hardly knew how to use, too late for WW II, but not for Webern. The excuse for raiding the house was that Webern's brother was in the black market. Who isn't? Do you know what kind of myth that's going to make in a thousand years? The young barbarians coming in to murder the Last European, standing at the far end of what'd been going on since Bach, an expansion of music's polymorphous perversity till all notes were truly equal at last….Where was there to go after Webern? (440-41)

"nobody gonna pull an Anton Webern on him" 443; "'As to some musical ears, dissonance is really a higher form of consonance. You've heard about Anton Webern?'" 494 Phrase: Webern,__Anton_(1883-1945) \Link: page:12

We know from V. that TRP knows some of Wittgenstein's key ideas. This italicized emphasis on knowing without analysis might be a nod to the Witttenstein of On Certainty who argued that universal epistemological doubt was, simply, wrong. "The key, then, is not to claim certain knowledge of propositions like "here is a hand" but rather to recognize that these sorts of propositions lie beyond questions of knowledge or doubt." Universal epistemolgical doubt is said to start, historically, with Descartes, a philosopher TRP seems to dislike for his 'rationality'. see Against the Day. Phrase: he knew \Link: page:13

Both androgen and estrogen receptors have been identified in brains. Several sex-specific genes not dependent on sex steroids are expressed differently in male and female human brains. From wikipedia. Phrase: Genital Brain. \Link: page:13

Contrary to Weisenburger, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies were actually the Sudanese natives fighting against (not conscripted for) the British. Here, Pirate is thinking not of the novels of the arch-apologist for Empire but of such Kipling poems as "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" in which a British soldier declares his grudging admiration for the natives' fighting spirit. Phrase: During his Kipling period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies \Link: page:13

W has this annoying habit of referring to Sax Rohmer as Arthur Sarsfield Ward (and I believe similarly to Bram Stoker under his birth name). Nobody recognizes Ward; the correct reference, the only reasonable one, is to Sax Rohmer Phrase: dacoits \Link: page:13

At least in the time of "Gunga Din," the Brits were fighting against the Fuzzy-Wuzzies, not recruiting them Phrase: Fuzzy-Wuzzies \Link: page:13

The reference here is not to the anachronistic Howard Hawks film Monkey Business but to George Stevens' Gunga Din, the 1939 film loosely inspired by Kipling's famous poem. It refers specifically to a scene where Cary Grant (and only Cary Grant) is indeed "larking in and out" of the tables of a regimental ball "slipping elephant medicine in the punchbowls." He even has to warn one of his compatriots (Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to not drink the punch as he is larking in and out. See ⁷Weisenburger's note at V684.31-35. Phrase: No Cary Grant . . . medicine in the punchbowls \Link: page:13

dracunculiasis 13; more commonly known as Guinea worm disease (GWD). A preventable infection caused by the parasite Dracunculus medinensis. Infection affects poor communities in remote parts of Africa that do not have safe water to drink [From the Center for Disease Control website] Phrase: dracunculiasis \Link: page:13

Fuzzy-Wuzzies This was the derogatory term used by the British for the Sudanese muslims (referring to their hair which was kinky) who were unified under the leadership of Mohammed Ahmed ibn Abdalla, who had declared himself the Mahdi (the "expected one"). Resisting the British forces who were aiding the Egyptians in their attempts to control southern Sudan, the "Mahdists" defeated the British at Khartoum in 1885 but were finally defeated by Lord Kitchener in 1898. Their bravery against the British, using spears against the British firearms, was memorialzed in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Fuzzy-Wuzzy". There's much about this in Pynchon's V.; "it was during [Pirate's] Kipling Period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies as far as the eye could see" 13

Phrase: Fuzzy-Wuzzies \Link: page:13

musicians/composers Sandy MacPherson, 13; George Formby, 18; Falkman and His Apache Band, 32; Charlie ("Yardbird") Parker, 63; Primo Scala's Accordian Band, 115; Hop Harrigan and Tank Tinker, 117; Roland Peachey and His Orchestra, 121; Thomas Tallis, Henry Purcell, Heinrich Suso, 129; Ernesto Lecuona, 169; Carl Orff, 237, 441; Benny Goodman, 225; Juan d'Arienzo, 267; Der Bingle (B. Crosby), 320; Richard Wagner, 324, 450; Andrews Sisters, 382; Frank Sinatra, 390, 700; Hugo Wolf, 419, 450; Ludwig von Beethoven, 440, 685; Anton Webern, 440, 494; Irving Berlin, 442; Horst Wessel, 443; Kurt Weill, 513; Gene Krupa, 513; Guy Lombardo, 529; Gilbert & Sullivan, 538; Jacques Offenbach, 584 ("Offenbach galop": Jacques Offenbach wrote the music to the well-known "Cancan" - "galop" is a dance); Sandy McPherson, 592; Spohr, Rossini, Spontini, 622; Diamond Lil, 657; 175-Stadt Chorale, 668; Stephen Foster, 675; Spike Jones, 678; Brahms, 685; Harry James, 685; J.S. Bach, 685; Tchaikovsky, 702; Josef Haydn, 712; Lübeck Hitler Youth Glee Club, 736; See also Rossini Phrase: musicians/composers \Link: page:13

Sue,_Eugene_(1804-57) 13; "a Eugene Sue melodrama"

Parisian journalist, called the "king of the popular novel," one of the most widely read writers of melodramatic fiction in the 19th-century France. Sue was sponsored by Prince Eugene de Beauharnais and the empress Joséphine; he used the prince's name to form his famous pen name. Sue gained fame through the roman-feuilleton, the serial novel which gained its height in the French periodical press in the 1840's. Sue's republican and socialist views are reflected in his best-known novels, Les Mysteres de Paris (1842-43), set in the Paris slums, and Le Juif errant (1844-45), published in installments for Le Constitutionnel in 1842-1843.

The above is from this excellent online biography. Phrase: Sue,_Eugene_(1804-57) \Link: page:13

Web correspondent Stephen Remato comments: " . . . Those serving in the British Army use the term to refer to the Military Police (in the American parlance 'snowdrops' in reference to the white helmets and gaiters); the term 'red caps' refers to the red band around the standard British Army officer's cap, what one might call the headband, which is usually khaki, with the exception of the red of the MPs. This makes much more sense in context, when the ownership of a narcotic cigarette is under scrutiny; why would one care if any Sudanese troops discovered this secret?" Phrase: Redcaps \Link: page:14

W's entry is seriously misleading, though funny. British military police are identified by their red caps. Sudanese my ass. See also 607.18 Phrase: red-cap \Link: page:14

As in "Half a loaf is better than none"? and "There is at least one Loaf in every outfit". Phrase: H.A. Loaf \Link: page:14

QUOTATION: Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. ATTRIBUTION: John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), British economist. A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923). Phrase: committed to the Long Run as They are \Link: page:14

quantitative model of the "vortex street" wake as a double row of point vortices. An engineering term. Pynchon studied engineering. Phrase: street-wake \Link: page:14

Correspondent Erik Johnson adds the following in relation to the references to the Adenoid here and at 754.38: "An adenoid is an enlarged mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the pharynx characteristically obstructing breathing–usually used in plural. I believe it's likely that Pynchon is also making reference to 'Adenoid Hynkel,' the character of the dictator (and mockery of Hitler) played by Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator. Phrase: -31 It was a giant Adenoid! \Link: page:14

To "blather" is to talk on foolishly (the reason for his mysterious death?). Lord Blather Hard? "Osmo" suggests "osmosis," the process by which the giant Adenoid would absorb its victims. Phrase: Lord Blatherard Osmo \Link: page:14

Sanjak and Sandjak are the most common English transliterations of the Turkish word Sancak, which literally means "banner". They were the sub-divisions of the Ottoman provinces referred to as vilayet, eyalet or pashaluk. ⁹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjak - Phrase: sanjak \Link: page:14

Adenoid Giant, 14; "the Adenoid" 754; [An adenoid is an enlarged mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the pharynx characteristically obstructing breathing – usually used in plural.] See also Zhlubb, Richard M. Phrase: Adenoid \Link: page:14

Eastern_Question What power would control the Middle East and Balkans after the Turks?; "an obscure penance for the previous century of British policy on the Eastern Question" 14; See Balkan Intrigues Phrase: Eastern_Question \Link: page:14

Holmes,_Sherlock 14; "a ~ London Evening" Phrase: Holmes,_Sherlock \Link: page:14

Loaf,_H.A._{(Half_A._Loaf_is_better_than_none.)} 14; Pirate has his fantasy Phrase: Loaf,_H.A._{(Half_A._Loaf_is_better_than_none.)} \Link: page:14

Novi_Pazar The sanjak (district) of Novi Pazar is a primarily Moslem town in southwest Serbia; "Who'd ever think-it, could start such a flap? […] the san-jak of Novi Pazar" 14-15; See also Balkan Intrigues Phrase: Novi_Pazar \Link: page:14

Osmo,_Lord_Blatherard 14-16; occupied Novi Pazar desk at Foreign Office; pharynx once blocked by the Adenoid Phrase: Osmo,_Lord_Blatherard \Link: page:14

The "bag" is the floppy crown of the headgear, not an appendage Phrase: Busbies \Link: page:15

Besides the observer balloons above, "the balloon is up" is British slang for "fighting is engaged", "war has begun".

Phrase: the balloon rises \Link: page:15