Pages 236-244

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 239

239.18-19 demons—yes, including Maxwell’s
Pynchon introduced Maxwell’s Demon in The Crying of Lot 49, where John Nefastis shows a supposedly working version of this theoretical entity to Oedipa. See the discussion of the Demon and the problem of entropy at the Pomona College Pynchon site.

Page 240

240.41 like Cary Grant
Though he was a naturalized American, Grant’s accent was hardly "quasi-British," as Weisenburger describes it. He was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England in 1904.

Page 244

244.33 Apache
The term, used to describe Parisian thugs, was coined in 1902 by journalist Victor Morris. The word is also used in reference to the famous "Apache dance," where an Apache flings his woman about the floor.