Difference between revisions of "Chapter 42: 422-435"

Revision as of 21:46, 24 August 2007

Page 422

Weather-gage
"Sh OED lists 'have or keep the weather gauge of' as be windward of, fig get the better of. On a side note, Pynchon also uses gage in GR for marijuana (in the Red Malcolm scene) and I always presumed this was a corruption of ganja or ganga, but no, it is listed under gage, LME, var of gauge, 1 A quart pot, long rare or obs LME, 2 A pipe; a pipeful (orig. of tobacco, now chiefly of marijuana), hence, marijuana, slang L17. That's L17 slang, foax! and no doubt the contents of the pipe changed some time before GW started growing and selling his crop in the M18." -- Dinn's Notes

See also: More Discussion on Dinn's notes

Dromonds
"The dromons (from Greek δρόμων, dromon, i.e. "runner") were the most important warships of the Byzantine navy from the 6th to 12th centuries AD. They were indirectly developed from the ancient trireme and were usually propelled by both oar and sail, a configuration that had been used by navies in the Mediterranean Sea for centuries." -- Wikipedia

Spielers
"Anglicized plural of German 'player' (as in Mabuse, Der...)" (Dinn's Notes). Possibly spelled as an "anglicized plural" in order to pun off spoilers, spies...?

Page 423

hey? right out of G. Rex's purse it came
"G Rex being King George" -- Dinn's Notes

the Tub!
Cf. A Tale of a Tub, a satire by Jonathon Swift? Read it in Wikisource, or read about it in Wikipedia, which describes it in such a Pynchonian light:

"From its opening (once past the prolegomena, which comprises the first three sections), the book is constructed like a layer cake, with Digression and Tale alternating. However, the digressions overwhelm the narrative, both in terms of the forcefulness and imaginativeness of writing and in terms of volume [...] Many critics have followed Swift's biographer Irvin Ehrenpreis in arguing that there is no single, consistent narrator in the work [...] The digressions individually frustrate readers who expect a clear purpose [...] Some, such as the discussion of ears or of wisdom being like a nut, a cream sherry, a cackling hen, etc., are outlandish and require a militantly aware and thoughtful reader."

Wikipedia also notes that satire targeted "indexers, note-makers." I found myself squirming as I read this paragraph while working on this wiki:

"Swift's targets in the Tale included indexers, note-makers, and, above all, people who saw 'dark matter' in books. Attacking criticism generally, he appears delighted that one of his enemies, William Wotton, offered to explain the Tale in an 'answer' to the book and that one of the men he had explicitly attacked, Curll, offered to explain the book to the public. In the fifth edition of the book in 1705, Swift provided an apparatus to the work that incorporated Wotton's explanations and Swift's narrator's own notes as well. The notes appear to occasionally provide genuine information and just as often to mislead, and William Wotton's name, a defender of the Moderns, was appended to a number of notes. This allows Swift to make the commentary part of the satire itself, as well as to elevate his narrator to the level of self-critic."

Page 425

Oh Ruddier than the Cherry
"Aria from Handel's Acis and Galatea of c 1720" -- Dinn's Notes

I believe that the words were written by John Gay (1688–1732) and that Handel set them to music. In this operatic scene, "the giant Polyphemus [a love-stricken cyclops], more used to wreaking terror and devastation than feelings of love, attempts to woo Galatea (O ruddier than the cherry) but Galatea flees in terror" (Bampton Classic Opera). See Wikipedia for more on the tale.

Listen to it, hear: YouTube

Read along while you listen:

O RUDDIER than the cherry!

O sweeter than the berry!

O nymph more bright

Than moonshine night,

Like kidlings blithe and merry!

Ripe as the melting cluster!

No lily has such lustre;

Yet hard to tame

As raging flame,

And fierce as storms that bluster!

Ripe as the melting cluster,

no lily has such luster;

yet hard to tame as raging flame

and fierce as storms that bluster.

O ruddier than the cherry,

O sweeter than the berry,

O ruddier than the cherry,

O sweeter than the berry,

O nymph more bright

than moonshine night

like kidlings blithe and merry.

It flies through the Air, in a curious, as it seems directed, Arc, hits the Tub with a solid bong, flattening its Point
Cf. p. 5, opening line to novel: "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings"

Page 427

Dutch Rifle
Dutch rifle wheellock, circa 1630: The jaw is normally tightened with the same spanner used to cock the lock. This being a "Dutch" lock.

Page 428

A Polaris of Evil
At the time of Mason & Dixon, Polaris only literally meant the North Star: "Polaris" comes from Stella Polaris, the Latin form of its common name "Pole Star". The rarely used Greek name Cynosura (Κυνόσουρα) means "tail of the dog".
Polaris was the name of a famous guided missile system in the 20th Century.
Here, North as the place from which death and destruction comes in Pynchon's world is clearly alluded to and what is another negative allusion to "man's best friend" may be implied. There is Pugnax the dog in ATD. Arguably, dogs are symbols of the bourgeoisie in Pynchon, complicit in mankind's war-making History in TRP's vision.

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