Pages 249-269

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 247

249.30 like Tenniel's Alice
Tenniel drew Alice for the original editions of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Page 249

249.5 & 6 Anglo vigilantes from Whittier
Whittier High School and Whittier College is where President Richard M. Nixon, President when GR was published, hailed from. [[1]]

Page 250

250.25-26 Sandoz (where, as every schoolchild knows, the legendary Dr. Hofmann made his important discovery)

That is, Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD-25 in 1943.

Page 252

252.19-20 penis-in-the-popcorn-box routine
Old urban 'legend', known as *Penis Surprise*. Urban Dictionary.

Page 253

253.03-4 this smile [Slothrop's own] asks from him more grace..
'Grace' is the last word of Against the Day and a key thematic concept therein.

253.20-21 heads for a bistro on the old-Nice side of La Porte Fausse
La Porte Fausse is a passage connecting the glamorous, touristy "modern"(19th century) centre of Nice with the crammed old town, which used to be a working-class district. It is called "The False Gate" because it looks as if it were just a gateway to a house. Passing to the other side seems to be an objective metaphor for entering the preterite world.

Page 255

255.26 it's Murray Smile
It would seem that this name is derived from Murray Wilson, Beach Boy Brian Wilson's abusive father, and the LP Smile, the legendary 1967 Beach Boys album that was never completed due to Brian's mental collapse and loss of will; Pynchon hung out with Brian during the legendary "Smile" Period — Pynchon and Brian Wilson

Page 257

257.31-32 The War has been reconfiguring time and space into its own image. The track runs in different networks now.
Cf. the railway network as a metaphor for parallel worlds or alternative histories in [COL 49].

Page 260

260.3 perpetual motion or as we like to call it Entropy Management
The whole passage reads somewhat like an ultra-condensed version of [COL49], Chapter Five.

260.9-10 robobobsters ... got a little goatee made out of steel wool.
Seems to be a bit anachronistic. After all, bebop was first promoted as "bebop" as late as 1944, and its popularity began to grow beyond Harlem in the summer of 1945. (The much-imitated goatee belonged to Dizzy Gillespie.)

260.30 "You interested in some L.S.D."
As a man from Sandoz, Mario Schweitar is aware of the hallucinogenic effect of LSD, discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1943. Slothrop, of course, has never head about it. Schweitar's "mournful" remark about the "wrong country" seems to be a complaint about Schwitzerland's neutrality and small market; the CIA and the U.S. Army used LSD in tests before it became a counter-culture fad.

Page 261

261.29 Gemüse-Brücke
Gemüsebrücke, or Gmüesbrugg, is the traditional name for the Rathausbrücke (a vegetable market used to be here).

Page 261

261.29 Gemüse-Brücke Gemüsebrücke, or Gmüesbrugg, is the traditional name for the Rathausbrücke (a vegetable market used to be here).