Difference between revisions of "Pages 3-7"

Revision as of 08:43, 24 June 2007

This page-by-page annotation is organized by sections, as delineated by the seven squares (sprockets) which separate each section. The page numbers for this page-by-page annotation are for the original Viking edition (760 pages). Editions by other publishers vary in pagination — the newer Penguin editions are 776 pages; the Bantam edition is 886 pages.

Contributors: Please use a 760-page edition (either the original Viking edition with the orange cover or the Penguin USA edition with the blue cover and rocket diagram — there are plenty on Ebay for around $10) or search the Google edition for the correct page number. Readers: To calculate the Bantam edition use this formula: Bantam page # x 1.165. Before p.50 it's about a page earlier; as you get later in the book, add a page.

Finally, profound thanks to Prof. Don Larsson for providing the foundation for this page-by-page annotation.

Page 3

crystal palace
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":

... a Palace, Lofter, fairer, ampler than any yet, Earth's modern wonder, History's Seven out stripping, High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron facades, Gladdening the sun and sky - enhued in the cheerfulest hues, Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom.

second sheep
3.14 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 555.29-31.

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 [1]

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 [2]

Page 5

5.03 His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.
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.")

5.03 all got scumbled together, eventually, by the knives of the 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 palette knife to do this scumbling business. A Google search for "scumble knife palette " found me this:

http://www.messums.com/sub_newsview.ink?nid=11191

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

Impasto eh? I thought that just meant paste. So the knives in "knives of the seasons" makes perfect sense. And Dictionary.com throws up another interesting nugget:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=scumbled

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

Apt example!

Page 6

Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at 10.14.