S

Sachsa, Peter

31; the "control" in Psi Section; lover of Leni Pökler, 147; medium at Rathenau seance, 163-65; killed in communist street action in 1930 in Neukölln (Berlin) by Schutzmann Jöche, a Nazi cop, 152; as Zaxa, 218; 219-20; 590; Etymological Musings

scombroid
217.20; Peter Sachsa is described as having a scombroid face, by which Pynchon means narrow. The family Scombridae, from which scombroid derives, are marine fishes which have in common, among other features, a tail which is connected to the body by a thin, but flexible and strong muscle. This family of streamlined predators of the open ocean includes the tunas and mackerels. "Scombroid" also refers to a type of food poisoning.

skivvies
Not female servants as Webster's Third International Unabridged defines it, but undergarments as defined by Google. For a sec, the contributor wrongly suspected Pynchon had made a howler, for the sentence goes "He runs into the bedroom, finds everything else he had on is gone too, down to shoes and skivvies." 199

SADOMASOCHISM (S/M)

St. Blaise, Group Capt. "Basher"

146; sees angel of death during RAF Lübeck strike, 151; Etymological Musings; See also Church of St. Blasius

St. Elmo's fire
The glow accompanying the brushlike discharges of atmospheric electricity that usually appears during stormy weather as a tip of light on the extremities of such pointed objects as church towers or the masts of ships; "will be seen spurting at moments from crossends" on the Anubis, 491

St. Felix
37; "the clock of" in London

St. John's Wood
544; an exclusive district in North-West London, where the Mossmoons live, famous for Lords Cricket Ground and Abbey Road Studios.

Saint Pauli
the English translation for "Sankt Pauli," which is the main red-light district in Hamburg/Germany. It's known for its sex-bars and its fusion of pimps, prostitutes and working-class inhabitants. St. Pauli is famous for the atmosphere that the harbour of Hamburg brings into the district. Sailors, seaman and other stranded creatures are walking over the Reeperbahn (St. Pauli's main street). The Star-Club, where the Beatles paid their dues before becoming hugely famous, is in St. Pauli; 525

St. Veronica's Hospital
46; of the True Image for Colonic and Respiratory Diseases; St. Veronica wiped Christ's forehead with her veil while he carried the cross; St. Veronica Papers, 688

St.-Just Grossout
540; blackman worked for Firm infiltrating Schwarzkommando (aka "Sam Juiced")

Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short

591; [a pun on Thomas Hobbes' (1588-1679) description, in Leviathan (1651), of the life of the members of the commonwealth in the absence of an all-powerful sovereign: "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual feare and danger of violent death; and the life of Man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."]; Lyle Bland's lawyers, 591; pallbearers at Lyle Bland's funeral, 652; Recall the law firm representing Pierce Inverarity in The Crying of Lot 49: Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus.

Sandhurst
202; a military academy, the British equivalent to West Point in the U.S

Sandoz
250; Swiss chemical company which joined Geigy and Ciba in a cartel, in the early '20s; Hoffman was working for Sandoz when he synthesized LSD; Schweitar worked there, 260;

Sandra
685; has "run away from the Kleinburgerstrasse" and staying at Der Platz

Sandra
606; acquaintance of Manuela's at Putzi's

Sandys, Duncan
Sandys, who was married to Churchill's daughter Diana, and later rumoured to be 'The Headless Man' in the infamous Duchess Of Argyll's divorce case, was Under-secretary of the Ministry of Supply in Britain during WWII. He was appointed by Churchill to investigate the rumored German experiments with secret weapons, which investigation led to the discovery of the rocket facilities at Peenemünde; "the P.M.'s son-in-law" who works out of the Ministry of Supply at Shell Mex House, 228; "Churchill's own son-in-law" 251

Sanktwolke, Edouard
385; German: "Saint Cloud"; "veteran automotive jobber" who supplied transportation for von Göll's and Waxwing's "travelling business conference"

Santora
744; family in Mingeborough, MA

Sargasso Sea
Area of the North Atlantic Ocean, elliptical in shape and relatively still, that is strewn with free-floating seaweed of the genus Sargassum. Encompassing the Bermuda Islands, a combination of ecological and biological conditions result in a dirth of plankton (a fish staple), creating a biological desert. Early navigators had the (unfounded) fear of becoming entangled within the mass of seaweed and unable to escape; "the sun-resorts of Sargasso where the bones come up to lie and bleach and mock the passing ships" 564;

Sargner
152; "a civilian attached to the General Staff" who is keyed on by Wimpe at séance

Sarnaki
424; target area for A-4, near Blizna, Poland

Sarts
340; Central Asian people

Sassoon, Lt. Siegfried Lorraine (1886-1967)
79; English poet and novelist whose experiences in World War I made him fiercely anti-war and he wrote numerous works which reflected this hatred, including Counterattack (1918) and Satirical Poems (1926)

sastrugi
420; Sastrugi are smooth, gently rolling snowfields, often covered with wind-drifted formations, on the interior of the Greenland ice sheet which is second in area only to the Antarctic ice sheet. It extends about 1,570 miles from north to south and has a maximum width of some 600 miles and an average thickness of about 5,800 feet.

Saturday Evening Post
435; American weekly magazine the covers of which often had Norman Rockwell illustrations

Saville Row
526; swank shopping district in London

Scammony, Sir Marcus (aka Angelique)
615; drinking with Clive Mossmoon at "their club"

Schacht, Hjalmar (1877-1970)
According to Sasuly, Schacht was head of the Reichsbank in the 1920s and 40s and was a key player in manipulating the German inflation of that time, while blaming it on "reparations and an unfavorable balance of payments." (p.47); his "many bookkeeping dodges to keep official records clear of any hint of weapons procurement banned under the terms of Versailles." 285

Schadenfreude
526; German: "joy at another's misfortune"; described but not named, 36; 745

Scheveningen
97; coastal town in Holland, just north of The Hague [MAP]; 102; 104; 105; 535

Schicksal
416; German: "fate, destiny" (misspelled "Shicksal" in earlier editions)

Schiller, Professor
224; Slothrop studying his book on regenerative cooling

Schilling
527; "[Närrisch] worked in guidance, he was Schilling's best man"

Schlabone, Gustav
366; composer buddy (and "unwelcome doping partner" 711) of Säure Bummer; 621; 2nd violin at Krupp affair (aka "Captain Horror"), 711; at Der Platz, 745

Schleim, Josef
630; "a defector of secondary brilliance, who had once worked for the IG out of Dr. Reithinger's office, VOWI"; 631;

Schlepzig, Max
Franz Pökler putting up handbills for a movie starring, 165; name on Slothrop's pass to get into Potsdam Conference, 377; actor in von Göll films who whipped Erdmann ("the Reich's Sweethearts"), 395; 439; 461

Schmeil
518; engineer at Peenemünde

Schmitz, Carl
565; "'Didn't Schmitz of the IG sit on Siemens's board of directors?'" 565;

Schnorp
332-36; Geli's friend who gives Slothrop balloon ride to Berlin

Schokoladestrasse
646; German: "Chocolate Street"; in Happyville

Schraub
568; German: "screw"; "the shoemaker" whose played Plechazunga "for the past 30 years"

Schumann of Düsseldorf
702; "army surgeons and dentists [...] will pick out [of Tchitcherine's body] what has entered it by violence with an electromagnetic device bought between the wars from"

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

Schwindel operative
286;

schwarz
German: literally 'black', but also 'secret' and/or 'illicit' as in 'Secret Service' or 'black market'; see Schwarzgerät and Schwarzkommando below

Schwarzgerät

252;"S-Gerät, 11/00000." 252;"Document SG-1" 252;"the one rocket out of 6000 that carried the Imipolex G device" 292; for sale for .5M francs by guy in Swinemünde who waits on Strand-Promenade until noon daily, 294; "The Schwartzgerät is no Grail" 364; "They want the Schwarzgerät." 455;"'F-Gerät, you sure of that?'" 487 details, 517; mandala (KEZVH), 560, 563;"'. . . that was the name of the German who commanded the battery that used the S-Gerät?'" 562;; 611; firing on Lüneburg Heath, 667; 706; "00001, the second in its series" 724; 00001, 728; "SG-1" 736; "the assembly of the 00001 is occurring also in a geographical way, a Diaspora running backwards" 737; as womb, 750; See also Rocket

Schwarzkommando
74-75; German: "blackcommand"; black rocket troops; credibillity of, 92; 112;found out about a week before V.E. Day 276; Slothrop runs into two dozen on train to Nordhausen, 286; Hitler's failed plan to create Nazi empire in black Africa, training troops in Südwest, 287; "They have a plan. . .I think it's rockets" 288; "we're DPs like everybody else" 288; Herero rocket troops assembling a rocket for one last stand, 326; "it is their time, their space" 326; their mandala is the five positions of the launching switch for A4, 361; digging up A4 in Berlin, 361; "mba-kayere" (I am passed over), 362; why they seek the Rocket, 362, 563; growing away from SS and their power becoming information and expertise, 427; in their own space, 519; Herero village arranged like a mandala, 563; must be stopped before they fire the Rocket, 565; "they have their rocket all assembled at last" 673; the trek to the firing site of the 00001, 726; 12 children at a "children's resort" (Zwölfkinder means "12 children" in German--GET IT?), 725

Schweitar, Mario
260, 268; troubleshooter around the Cartel; worked for Sandoz

Schwindel
286; German: "fraud" "trick", also "dizziness"; "code name for Hugo Stinnes"

SCIENCE, PHYSICS, MATH &c.
See also delta-t; Poisson Distribution

screen door salesman
447; "dumb and easygoing" husband of woman in Slothrop's dream in three parts; 665, "Minnie Calkins (Chapter 1.793) got married Easter Sunday to a screen-door salesman from California. Sorry to say he's not eligible for Membership - at least not yet. But with all those screen doors around, we'll sure keep our fingers crossed!"

scrip
105; temporary paper currency issued during emergencies/special circumstances

Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs Prison, in London; "I'll see you two in the Scrubs if it kills me!" 717

Scuffling, Ian
256; Pseudonym given to T. Slothrop by Waxwing in Nice; See also Slothrop, Tyrone

Scylla and Charybdis
239; In Greek legend, Scylla was a monster with twelve feet and six heads each with three rows of teeth who lived on the rock of Scylla on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina which are between Italy and Sicily. Charybdis, who was a monster, the whirlpool she formed and the rock cliff under which she lived, faced Scylla on the other side of the Straits. Such a situation made passage through the Straits a very dodgy proposition for sailors.

SD
431; German: Sicherheitsdienst = police-duty; The Nazi Party's intelligence and security body. Created by Himmler, it operated in foreign countries, creating instability and attempting to foment revolution.

séance
29-30; 4-way entente: medium; control; spirit; survivor; Feldspath, 30; Overbaby, 152; "a visitation by the dead" 153; Rathenau, 163-67; at The Castle with Blicero, 487; "other fourfold expressions" 624; "sensitive flames" 715; Brigadier Pudding, 715

Second Empire
The Second Empire (1852-70) of Napoleon III; 675

Section 8
114; a category of discharge from the United States military for reason of being mentally unfit for service; 182

Seele
654; German: "soul, spirit"; "as the core of the earlier carbon filament was known in Germany"

SELF-REFERENCE

Semirechie
611; province in Kazakhstan, in the Soviet Union

Semyavin
258; local Waxwing rep in Zürich?; 261

1 September
479; On September 1, 1939, the German Army invaded Poland, thus "initiating" WWII

SERPENT/SNAKE
See also Snake

SEZ WHO
270; Slothropian Episodic Zone, Weekly Historical Observations

Seven Rivers country
338; where Tchitcherine was stationed, "in a remote 'bear's corner'"

sfacim-a
299; sfacim: from "sfaciàre" = to dismantle
Tony Assenza graciously supplied the following regarding "sfacim":
Having been called a "sfacim" by my uncles and other relatives more than a few times in my life, I believe your reference might require more elaboration. In its original form, "sfacim" is Neapolitan slang for semen — equivalent to US slang such as spunk or gism. However, it's also widely used as a term of endearment, as in "Hey, sfacim. Come over here and give your grandmother a kiss before I break your face." The closest US slang term would be "spunky." It's a term that someone living on Long Island or Upstate New York would probably hear a lot in Italian-American neighborhoods. One would pronounce it "SFA CHEEM."

's Gravenhage
209; aka The Hague;

shadows
316; God-shadows, 330; 332; 333; 336; 342; 359; 363; 397; 405; darkness at the edges of things, 446; 458; 482; 500; 510; 524; 536; 539; 543; 561; Pointsman's corner, 633; Slothrop as "shadow-child" 677; stars as shadows of the creator's bones and ducts, 699; "sound-shadow" (when the roaring of the sun stops), 695, 711; 740; 749; 760

SHAEF
17; Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force; 74; 76; 121; 210; 244; 287

Shatsk
352; nose-fetishist in Weird Letter Assignments; Shatsk is a town in the Volynskaja oblast [political subdivision], in the Ukraine.

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

Shearer, Norma (1900-83)
690; Hollywood actress who played sophisticated roles, and the wife of producer Irving Thalberg; "Your closet could make Norma Shearer's look like the wastebasket in Gimbel's basement."

Sheila
449; Steve's (GE employee on the Toiletship) fiancée

Shekhinah
479: Hebrew: "(female) neighbor"

Shell Mex House
Shell Mex House, built 1930-31 is situated at number 80, Strand, London. It was for many years the London headquarters of Shell-Mex and BP Ltd for whom it was originally built. During WWII the building became home to the Ministry of Supply which co-ordinated supply of equipment to the national armed forces. It was also the home of the "Petroleum Board" which handled the distribution and rationing of petroleum products during the war. 251; "Where all the rocket intelligence is being gathered"; 272

Shell Oil
Dutch Shell, 240-41, 251; 1939 agreement with ICI, 250; Shell Mex House, 251; "The representative from Shell Mex House, Mr. Dennis Joint" 272; "frantic about Slothrop's disappearance" 272; "after the [Russian] revolution, when the emissaries from Dutch Shell were asked to leave" 354

Shetzline
389; "classic study" of the time-modulation properties of Oneirine

Shirley
599; pretty girl driving the Red Cross Clubmobile that is hijacked

Short, Coolidge ("Hot")
591; "of the State Street law firm of Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus, and Short" and a friend of Lyle Bland's

Shufflin' Sam
558; "the game of skill where you have to shoot the Negro before he gets back over the fence with the watermelon"

Sidney's Great Yellow Grille
65; recalled by Slothrop during Sodium Amytal session

Siege Perilous
According to Arthurian legend, the Round Table was reserved for only the most valiant knights, while the Siege Perilous was left waiting for the coming of Galahad, the pure knight who would achieve the quest of the Grail (the vessel from which Christ drank at the Last Supper) and bring the marvels of Arthur's kingdom to a close; "jokers around the table be sneaking Whoopee Cushions into the" 321

Siemens-Schuchert
"the horizontal electrical trust of Siemens-Schuchert" 284; "Siemens milliammeters set on slate surfaces" 518; "GE has connections with Siemens over here" 565; "Didn't Närrisch, under the drug, mention a Siemens representative at the S-Gerät meetings in Nordhausen? [...] Didn't Carl Schmitz of the IG sit on Siemens's board of directors?" 565; "Russia bought from Krupp, didn't she, from Siemens, the IG...." 566; "a contract the Bland Institute landed a few years ago and subbed part of out to Siemens over there in Germany" 583; "Fibel worked for Siemens back when it was still part of the Stinnes trust [...] he also put in some time as a Stinnes intelligence agent." 587; "an ingenious Osmo-elektrische Schalterwerke, developed by Siemens" 646; "clever Siemens Electric Baby Bulb Pacifiers" 647;"bright here as the morning shift at Siemens with the centaurs struggling high on the wall" 725; See also Siemens, Wernher; Stinnes; Sasuly's ''IG Farben''; Siemens AG Homepage!

Siemens, Wernher (d. 1892)
649; German electrical engineer; one of the discoverers of the self-acting dynamo; See also Siemens-Schuchert

Siggi
157; old friend of Leni's, known as "the Troll"

Sigmund
457; with Greta Erdmann, 474-78; 480

Silberschlag, Frau
165; German: "silver shock or blow"; next door neighbor of Leni and Franz Pökler's who delivers Leni's "last message" to Franz

Silvernail, Webley
79; works in ARF wing at White Visitation; audiovisual guy; shows Katje film to Grigori, 113; in rat production number, 229; named "Twelfth House" 274; 533; 620

Simpson, Mrs. Bessie Wallis Warfield Spencer (1896-1986)
177; An American who married Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII. Edward abdicated the throne in order to marry this twice-divorced commoner.

Skinner, Burrhus Frederic (1904-1990)
American psychologist and a persistent proponent of Behaviorism, expanding on the ideas of John Watson who advocated the study of behavior as the only way to provide psychology with a scientific basis. Skinner died of leukemia on August 18, 1990; 77

Skippy.gif
Skippy

644-45; and Mr. Information; Etymological Musings; Skippy's Home Page

Slothrop, Broderick
285; Tyrone's father; aka "Schwarzvater" (Jamf), 286; hated FDR, 373; Tyrone's dream about, 392; sold experimental rights to Tyrone to Jamf for $5000 for Harvard education, 444; Paternal Peril "a murderin' fool" 674; 677; 682

Slothrop, Constant (d. 1766)
26; ancestor of Tyrone; tombstone depicts Hand of God coming out of a cloud

Slothrop, Mrs. Elizabeth
27; wife of Isaiah

Slothrop, Frederick (d. 1933)
27; Tyrone's grandfather

Slothrop, Hogan
29; Tyrone's brother; his Hawaiian shirt, 184, 201; 266; 304; "in love with Chiquita Banana" 678; 682; 744

Slothrop, Hogan Jr.
744; son of Hogan Slothrop; [From Pynchon's short story "The Secret Integration" in Slow Learner:"the doctor's kid, who at the age of eight had taken to serious after-bedtime beer-drinking and at the age of nine got religion, swore off beer and joined the Alcoholics Anonymous, a step his father, who was what is know as permissive, gave his blessing" (p.151)]

Slothrop, Lt. Isaiah (d. 1812)
27; ancestor of Tyrone

Slothrop, John
555; son of William Slothrop, who helped his dad get the "pig operation" going

Slothrop, Nalline
18; Tyrone's mother; 116; 360; "always happy to see young people getting together" 499; 674; letter to Joe Kennedy, 682-83; 712

SLOTHROP, Lt. Tyrone
Etymological Musings; See also Slothrop's girls/stars;

SLOTHROP'S TAROT

Slothrop's girls/stars
Delores, 19; Alice, 19; Gladys, 19; Lorraine and Judy, 19; Darlene, 19, 271; Katherine, 19; Shirley, 19; "a couple of Sallys" 19; "Carolines, Marias, Annes, Susans, Elizabeths" 19; "Gloria and her nubile mother" 19; Marjorie, 22, 25, 744; Norma, 22, 25; Allison, 23; Irene, 23; Jennifer, 23, 271; Cynthia, 26; "'What about the girls??'" 91; Madelyn, 252; Jenny's ghost, 255-56; Angela, 271; Lucy, 271; Jenny, Sally W., Cybele, Catherine, Gretchen, 271

Slothrop, Variable
27; son of Constant

Slothrop, William
21; Tyrone's first American ancestor; 27; 364; came to US in 1630 on Arabella, 554; On Preterition - published in England, burned in Boston, 555 Available in the HyperArts BookShop - Really! sort of...; returned to England and died there missing USA, 556; his hymn, 760; The "Real" William Slothrop/Pynchon

Slug
229; rat who got "fried" the first time he fucked up running the maze

Smaragd, Generaldirektor
164-66; (German: "Emerald"); Nazi with IG Farben; "from Leverkusen. An elderly man who used a cane, a notorious spiritualist before the War" 486

smegma
"layers, over a base of bureaucratic smegma" 18; "Tchitcherine has found it necessary to abandon his smegma-gathering stake-out on the Argentine anarchists" 700;

Smile, Murray
255; appears in Slothrop's dream as "next to you in basic, company 84"; Etymology: Murray Wilson was Brian Wilson's father; Tom hung out with Brian during the legendary "Smile" Period — Pynchon and Brian Wilson

Smithfield Market
Famous meat market in the old City of London. During the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation it was used as a place of execution; where Lucifer Amp "makes a spectacle of himself" every day, 542

Smith, Klein, 'n' French
518; "Enzian, Andreas, and Christian, coming on like"

Smith, Sir Denis Nayland
See Sir Denis Nayland-Smith

Snade, Mrs.
169; "wrote in to the Times from Luton Hoo, Bedfrdshire" regarding Gwenhidwy's singing voice

Snake
342-43; Tchitcherine's horse (methodically homicidal; unpredictable); Gretel's (Greta Erdmann's) co-star in Weisse Sandwuste von Neumexiko, 482

Snipe and Shaft
9; Slothrop's and Tantivy's watering hole; 19; 21

Snodd, Mrs.
744; in Mingeborough, MA

snowdrops
247; Slang for GI military police in WWII; 601

Snoxall's
32; place where seances are held; 33; 37; 238

Sodium Amytal
61; truth serum; used on Slothrop; induces "toilet"/Kenosha Kid episode; used on von Göll, 511-14; 746

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]

Solange

603; German: "as long as" "while" compare etymologies with Mrs. Quoad; "masseuse" at Putzi's See also Pökler, Leni

Somerset Club
28; exclusive club "no Slothrop ever made it into"

Son of Frankenstein
106; The third film in Universal Studios' Frankenstein series and the last to feature Boris Karloff as the Monster as well as the first to feature Bela Lugosi as Ygor.

SONGS/COMPOSITIONS

Sooty
174; Jessica's cat; 177

Sound-Shadow
"the silences here are retreats of sound [...] sound draining away, down slopes of acoustic passage, to gather, someplace else, to a great surge of noise" 336-37; "a very shallow pocket of no-sound, [...] sound-energy from Outside is shut off. The roaring of the sun stops. [...] the arousing feather-point of the Sound-Shadow has touched you, enveloping you in sun-silence" 695; "this subversive use of sudden fff quieting to ppp. It's the touch of the wandering sound-shadow, the Brennschluss of the Sun." 711

sour stuff
240; oxygen; the German word for oxygen is "Sauerstoff"

SPANISH TRANSLATIONS

Spaniols
549; Spaniards

Sparks
732; aka Ozohande, with Enzian

Sparte IV
630; "Slothrop surveillance being assigned to a newly created 'Sparte IV' under Vermittlungsstelle W"

Spectro, Dr. Kevin
46; "neurologist and casual Pavlovian" at St. Veronica's; "one of the original seven owners of The Book" 47; killed in a V-2 hit on St. Veronica's, 138; 139; 140; 167

Speed, Harvey
270; SEZ WHO Englishman hired by Pointsman to check out Slothrop's sexual conquests; See also Perdoo, Floyd; SEZ WHO

Speer, Albert (d. 1981)
298; Architect for the Third Reich; "in charge of the New German Architecture then, and later he went on to become Minister of Munitions, and nominal chief customer for the A4"; "Albert Speer Touch" 298; Ölsch designing Nordhausen factory, 411; and Toiletship, 448; "alabaster open-air stadium with giant cement birds" 687

SPOG
272; Special Projectiles Operations Group of which Operation Backfire is a part; 277; 391; 595; 601

Spontoon, Doctor
591; with Dr. Muffage, out to castrate Slothrop; has a black spade on his cheek

Spörri

455; aerodynamics person on S-Gerät project; ignores Khlaetsch's cries for help, 684; Etymological Musings

Spottbilligfilm AG
163; German: "spottbillig" = "dirt cheap"; subsidiary of IG Farben "whose entire management are about to be purged for sending to OKW weapons procurement a design proposal for a new airborne ray which could turn whole populations [...] blind"; "from whom von Göll used to get cut rates on most of his film stock" 387;

SPQR
135; Latin: senatus populusque Romanus = the senate and the people of Rome; also acronym for small profits, quick returns

S.P.R.
153; Society for Psychical Research; 633;

Spree-Oder Canal
433; in the Russian sector of Berlin, where Slothrop & Margherita stay; 457 [MAP]

Springer, Der

376; German: "chess knight"; aka von Göll; the "Knight who leaps perpetually across the chessboard of the Zone"; white plastic chess knight (his symbol), 436; "white knight of the black market" 492; described, 494; aka Herr Gemütlich ("good-natured"), 496; on Sodium Amytal, 512, 514, 746; See also Göll, Gerhardt von; Etymological Musings...

Sprudelhof
458; German: "Spring or Well" + "Yard" or "Palace"; main drag of Bad Karma on the Spree-Oder Canal; 476

Sprue, Amy
329-30; Tyrone's ancestor who was a "genuine Salem Witch"

Squalidozzi, Francisco
263; Argentine exile, paranoid about Peronists; hijacked German U-Boat in Mar de Plata; his group (incl. Graciela Portales) seeking political exile in Germany after the War; want open spaces--no fences; meets von Göll in abandoned harmonica factory, 384; "Old Squalidozzi, ploughman of the deep" 447; 613; being sought by Slothrop, 681

ss
second sheep, 3, 555; sour smell, 3, 171; "cast-iron pulleys whose spokes are shaped like Ss" 4; saddleback sows, 5; split second 7, 199; sour stomach, 17; Selena. Selena., 30; speedy stalk, 35; 3-sigma, 40, 523, 635, 709; systematic stealth, 42; soft smell, 43, 754; separate straws, 43; stray shadow, 49; silverblue stalks, 54; silver string, 59; silver seeds, 63; smooth sinewaving, 67; silk stockings, 74, 211, 395, 410, 629; shadowy smells, 78; stronger stimulus, 79; structured stimulus, 82; spilled sand, 91; simple sorrow, 98; sugar-smears, 99; soft-wood smells, 106; snow-skin, 107; slate shadows, 108; southern stars, 109; steel snake, 109; smoky spires, 111; starving spring, 111; soap-heavy smell, 112; sunlit shops, 119; spiral stairways, 122; sour salt, 124; spider-statistician, 124; sound stimuli, 125; soap spots, 125; small stitches, 126; snow-sky, 128; steam smells, 132; seasonal swell, 132; semi-detached Sunday, 132; shiny suits, 133; snowy soot, 138; sheet steel, 139; "sibilant weave" 152; single subculture, 153; swampy suburbs, 160; Sunday strolls, 162; squeak-stockinged slavegirl, 168; slime stone, 169; scratched silver, 186; shaking Slothrop, 187; Slothrop staggering, 187; sudden shrewdness, 188; silent sea, 195; "S'd against the S of himself" 198; social sense, 206; "Old Norse rune for S" 206; study sessions, 211; slack-jawed subalterns, 212; sensitive son, 215; simultaneous stimuli, 226; ssörrender, 230; starch shirt, 232; star shell, 233; sovereign smell, 235, 736; Slothropian space, 238; sad story, 238, 285, 445, 667; self-sufficiency, 240; sour stuff (oxygen), 240; Esso, 240; stiff shirts, 243; secret service, 244; sea-steps, 245; 454: setting sun, 253, 454; striped socks, 254, saddle stitching, 254; sun-black skiers, 258; somber street, 259; senseless screaming, 263; spy-sign, 263; south sea, 266; stumbling surrender, 271; sexual sigh, 272; Slothropian stars, 272; salt sea, 273; stainless steel, 274; suspicious stare, 274; spy system, 286; sad surprise, 289; tunnels, 299; double-integral sign, 300-01; "Summe, Summe" 300; static space, 301; "Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep" 302; scorched skullcap, 304; silk spill, 314; shadow states, 315; scientific speculating, 317; simple steel, 324; shining steel, 325; scarlet silk, 332; Soviet state, 349; sea story, 351; secret spaces, 354; scientist-surrogate, 361; staring sun, 372; smiling sentry, 378; suspended storm, 378; stenciled signs, 380; S-curve, 380; steel spaces, 384; sea-squirm, 389; subjective sense, 389; silver sponge, 389; soup-stock, 389; sentimental side-trip, 393; social spectrum, 402; stormy shore, 409; double-summing, 411; second shadow, 424; string shadows, 436; southern slop, 442; spring-suspension, 446; sound stages, 446; stud service, 446; S-curved spokes, 450; sailors' superstitions, 450; Scatotechnic Snipes, 451; sun suits, 453; star streaks, 457; suspender straps, 466; satin straps, 469; summer spook, 472; silver stork, 486; salty snot, 492; smooth stones, 494; sweet smile, 496; sleepy summer, 505; steel smile, 512; serpentine slagheap, 520; silver stars, 530; slippery satin, 531; Sickly Smile, 534; single set, 556; smalltown space, 556; Special Services, 558, 700; Shufflin' Sam, 558; surveying stakes, 560; starch-colored sky, 564; "curving through the ogival opening" 573; silver streak, 583, 586; spherical soul, 583; State Street, 589, 591; "Yess, yess" 590; straw stomach, 596; soapy sponge, 603; "silver straw" 613; streamlined spires, 624; Slothrop surveillance, 630; ssem, 633; saffron spindles, 634; summer stillness, 639; sudden surprises, 643; sailor suits, 657; "screen-door salesman" 665; "the invisible SS" 666; straw space, 669; saucy sideways smile, 670; subdeb secretaries, 674; submarine skipper, 674; Sniveling Slothrop, 679; spirited salt, 684; Scatterbrained Suicidekicks, 691; Semlower Strasse, 692; Sound Shadow, 695, 711; Sentimental Surrealist, 696; suitable stimuli, 699; sandy streets, 700; sister ships, 715; snot soup (unter anderem), 715; still strata, 720; striving subcreation, 720; Subsequent Sin, 722; 729: silk scarf, 729; Spaceman Smile, 732; See also chess; Rossini. See Patterns in Words and Letters

Stage Door Canteen
134; During World War II, the American Theatre Wing ran New York's Stage Door Canteen for the benefit of soldiers on leave. It was frequented by many stars, some of whom graciously performed menial tasks, while others entertained the crowd. Dozens of those celebrities appear as themselves in this lavish musical about romances that blossom between canteen employees and soldiers. The film The Stage Door Canteen (1943), starring Katharine Hepburn, is set there.

Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953)

Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia; Stalin was expelled from the Tiflis Theological Seminary for being a Marxist. He joined the Bolsheviks and was arrested and sent to Siberia from whence he escaped in 1904. From being general secretary to the Central Committee under Lenin in 1922, he became Soviet leader in 1924 upon Lenin's death. He was a brutal dictator whose purges resulted in the deaths of millions as well as the suppression of artistic expression in Russia; "during the Stalin days, Tchitcherine was stationed in a remote 'bear's corner'" 338; "conspiracy to hit Stalin in the face with a grape chiffon pie" 353; "big chromo of" in Berlin, mustache 368; 373; "Even Stalin's had [doubts]" 703

Statue of Liberty
The colossal statue on Liberty Island in the Upper Bay of New York Harbour, U.S., was a gift from France commemorating the friendship of the peoples of the U.S. and France. The statue, designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Barthold, is constructed of copper sheets which are assembled on a framework of steel supports designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. For transit to America, the figure was disassembled into 350 pieces and packed in 214 crates. Four months later, it was reassembled on Bedloe's Island (renamed Liberty Island in 1956). It was dedicated by President Cleveland on October 28,1886; 637

Sterling, Alan
277; fiancé of Fleurette who was raised from birth to carry on the monstrous line of the emperor of the underworld, Fu Manchu; Alan Sterling, young orchid-hunter, first saw her on the little French beach and knew that he had never seen anyone more beautiful; he's also portrayed as the love-suffering young man receiving eloquent advice from Sir Denis Nayland-Smith.

Stettin
or Szczecin in Polish; a Baltic seaport, ceded by German to Poland following WWII; 293; 408; 418;

Steve
449-50: GE employee and Charles' "colleague" on the Toiletship; husband of Sheila

Stickstoff Syndikat
580; Jamf "getting Weimar to subsidize the IG's";

Stick, Joaquin
9; at Pirate's maisonette

Stiletto May
129; character conjured by the presence of the black man in choir at the Advent service attended by Roger and Jessica

Stinnes, Hugo (1870-1924)
A German industrialist and politician; 284; "Bland either saw the Stinnes crash coming before most of its other victims, or was just naturally nervous. Early in '23 he began to sell off his interests in the Stinnes operations." 285-86; "'Schwindel' was [Jamf's] code name for Hugo Stinnes." 286; "Stinnes, like every industrial emperor, had his own company spy system." 286; "You were meant to think of Hugo Stinnes, the tireless operator behind the scenes of apparent Inflation, apparent history: gambler, financial wizard, archgangster...a fussy bürgerlich mouth, jowls, graceless moves, a first impression of comic technocracy" 579; "Fibel worked for Siemens back when it was still part of the Stinnes trust." 587; Sasuly's IG Farben

Stodda
406; "treatise on steam turbines" studied by Pökler at Peenemünde in '38

STONES

Stonybloke, Will
65; friend of Slothrop's who appears in toilet adventure

Sträggeli
258; listed under "Espionage, Industrial" on the list of Zürich cafés, where Slothrop meets Mario Schweitar; 268;

Stralsund
532; "Semlower Strasse in" 692;

streets
692; "Semlower Strasse in Stralsund"; "Hafenstrasse in Greifswald"; "Slüterstrasse in the old part of Rostock"; "Wandfärberstrasse in Lüneburg";

Stresemann, Gustav (1878-1929)
452; German statesman who entered the Reichtag in 1907, rose to prominance leading the National Liberal Party and eventually, for a few months in 1923, was chancellor of the new German (Weimar) Republic. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926; "'They pray not only for their daily bread [he said] but also for their daily illusion'"

Strobe
89; "Strobe's stimulus" appeared in early Viking editions of Gravity's Rainbow, but was quickly changed to "Jamf's stimulus"; apparently "Strobe" was an early working name for "Jamf"

Stuggles, Constable
73; tried to stop LeFroyd from jumping off cliff; 74

Südwest
99; German colony from 1892 until1915 when it was taken by South African forces during WWI. It was made a Protectorate of South-West Africa under the League of Nations; now called Namibia, it was under South African control until 1990 when it gained its independence. [MORE]; [MAP]

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 Eugène 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 Mystères 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.

Suggenthal
269;

Sundial
472; cartoon character

surface
"she fears the Change, choosing instead only trivially to revise what matters least, ornament and clothing, going no further than politic transvestism" 97; "lust in the face--the mask--of instant talion" 100; "house is outward-and-visible sign" 448;

sus. per coll. crowd
329; In the English practice, a calendar is made out of attainted criminals, and the judge signs the calendar with their separate judgments in the margin. In the case of a capital felony. it is written opposite the prisoner's name, "let him be hanged by the neck," which, when the proceedings were in Latin, was, "suspendatur per collum," or, in the abbreviated form, "sus' per coll'."

Suso, Heinrich (1295-1336)
129; German mystic and preacher [1]. His composition In Dulci Jubilo is a German/Latin macaronic carol (Pynchon (mis)spells it "macronic" and (mis)dates it as "fifteenth century" — it's 14th C.); the first verse (of four), quoted in GR, can be translated as follows:

In dulci jubilo (In sweet Joy)
Sing and shout all below!
He for whom we're pining
Lies in praesepio (In a manger)
Like the sun is shining
Matris in gremio. (In His mothers lap.)
Qui est A et O. (Who is Alpha and Omega.)
In Dulci Jubilo Web Page


Suvorov
350; Rozhdestvenski's flagship on which Tchitcherine's father was a gunner

Swanlake, Jessica
30; "young rosy girl in the uniform of an ATS private" who has wartime affair with Roger Mexico; at Snoxall's seance, 30-34; meets Mexico, 38-39; Fay Wray look, 57; girlfriend of Jeremy "Old Beaver" 121; 627; "Her future is with the World's own" 629; working for Pointsman, 631; 640; hardened toward Mexico, 708-09

Swanlake, Nancy

174-77; Jessica's sister; late husband was Keith; kids: Penelope (also p.277), Claire, Elizabeth

Swinemünde
459: a town in NW Poland, on the island of Usedom, at the mouth of the Swina River. It is the outer port for Szczecin (Polish name for "Stettin") and a fishing center and seaside resort. First mention of the town dates from 1181. During World War II, the town was a German naval base.

Swope, Gerard (1872-1957)
Swope, president of the General Electric Company (1922-39; 1942-44) in the United States, greatly expanded GE's line of consumer products and pioneered profit-sharing and other benefits programs for its employees. After his retirement from GE in 1939, he chaired the New York City Housing Authority until 1942; "was ace buddies with old FDR [...] one-thim Brain Trusters" 565; "Business Advisory Council set up under Swope of General Electric, whose ideas on matters of 'control' ran close to those of Walter Rathenau, of German GE" 581;

Sztup, Mme.
463; Yiddish: "poke" or "fuck"; passenger on the Anubis

Gravity's Rainbow Alpha Guide
A·B·C·D·E·F·G·H·I·J·K·L·M·N·O·P·Q·R·S·T·U·V·W·XYZ top of page
Personal tools