Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Pages 37-42

2007-06-27T17:37:03Z

Barryd58: /* Page 39 */

==Page 38==

38.38 '''Tunbridge Wells'''
Picturesque town on the route from London to England's south east coast

==Page 39==

39.11 '''Nearly to Battle'''
Apart from reflecting the emotional state of the characters in this scene, Battle is the site of the 1066 Battle of Hastings where the Norman invader, William the Conqueror won the battle that prefigured his conquering of the whole of the island.

Talk:Pages 37-42

2007-06-27T17:36:06Z

Barryd58: /* Page 38 */

==Page 38==

38.38 '''Tunbridge Wells'''
Picturesque town on the route from London to England's south east coast

==Page 39==

39.11 '''Nearly to Battle'''
Apart from refelcting the emotional state of the characters in this scene, Battle is the site of the 1066 Battle of Hastings where the Norman invader, William the Conqueror won the battle that prefigured his conquering of the whole of the island.

Talk:Pages 37-42

2007-06-27T17:31:53Z

Barryd58: New page: ==Page 38== 38.38 '''Tunbridge Wells''' Picturesque town on the route from London to England's south east coast

==Page 38==

38.38 '''Tunbridge Wells'''
Picturesque town on the route from London to England's south east coast

Pages 29-37

2007-06-27T17:28:08Z

Barryd58: /* Page 36 */

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==Page 30==

30.39 '''Jessica Swanlake''' 
Jessica’s last name, like other musical references in the novel, is suggestive. Like the heroine of the Tchaikovsky ballet, she finds true love and is transformed, but then is abducted back to her former state by an evil magician (in this case, Pointsman).

==Page 31==

[[image:carroll-righter.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]31.28 '''Carroll Eventyr''' 
As Weisenburger notes, "eventyr" is Danish for "adventure" but in the sense of a tale or story ("The Adventures of . . . "). It can signify "folk tales" or "fairy tales," as in Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The first name evokes '''Lewis''' Carroll but it also suggests the astrologer Carroll '''Righter''', whose face appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about growing interest in the occult on March 21, 1969. Righter, nicknamed "The Gregarious Aquarius," later would read charts for Ronald Reagan, among other celebrities. Also see the note at [[Pages 735-760#742|742.29]].

==Page 33==

33.26 '''Witchcraft Act''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers this interesting elaboration on the reference:
"A few years ago, I came upon a short article in our daily newspaper ''Delo'', which could be interesting here. It says: 'The British spiritualists started a campaign to acquit Helen Duncan, sentenced as a witch during the World War II. She was sentenced as a consequence of a séance in 1942. She told she had seen in her trance a dead soldier wearing a cap with the inscription HMS Barham, who had told her: My ship was sunken. The news about this fact (the ship was supposedly sunken on 25 November 1942) was kept secret by the British government for two years, as Winston Churchill wrote in his diary. In 1944, Duncan was arrested since they were afraid that she would reveal also the date of the D-day. Her trial was based on the Witchcraft Act from 1735, and she was sentenced to nine months of prison. Argument: Helen Duncan pretends that she conjures the spirits of the dead.' It seems that Mexico refers to this case; the year and quotation from the Act correspond to the conviction of Helen Duncan." A web search using Helen Duncan's name will reveal several websites devoted to the "medium martyr."

==Page 36==

36.3 '''ICI''' Standing for Imperial Chemical Industries. one of the foremost British public companies, known as the bellwether of the British economy before its reconfiguration and relative demise.

[[image:beaver.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]36.27-28 '''the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver''' 
"Beaver" is the nickname for Jessica’s other and more staid lover, Jeremy. The nickname derives from the ‘40s slang for the beard he sports. (For example, in the "home front" film ''Since You Went Away'' [1944], the bearded character played by Monty Woolley is referred to as "Beaver.") The word also is vulgar slang for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals.

==Page 37==

37.10-11 '''Fred Roper’s Company of Wonder Midgets''' 
[[image:fred-roper.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]This is apparently a real group, although I have no information on them except that a postcard exists captioned "Fred Roper and His Wonderful Midgets" with a tall man in a busby and military greatcoat and a troop of midgets in uniform under the heading "The Toy Soldier Parade." The website for The Princess Theatre Hunstanton (England) notes that the building opened as the Capitol Theatre in 1932. One of the first acts to play there was "Fred Roper and His 20 Wonder Midgets"!

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Pages 29-37

2007-06-27T17:27:39Z

Barryd58: /* Page 36 */

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==Page 30==

30.39 '''Jessica Swanlake''' 
Jessica’s last name, like other musical references in the novel, is suggestive. Like the heroine of the Tchaikovsky ballet, she finds true love and is transformed, but then is abducted back to her former state by an evil magician (in this case, Pointsman).

==Page 31==

[[image:carroll-righter.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]31.28 '''Carroll Eventyr''' 
As Weisenburger notes, "eventyr" is Danish for "adventure" but in the sense of a tale or story ("The Adventures of . . . "). It can signify "folk tales" or "fairy tales," as in Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The first name evokes '''Lewis''' Carroll but it also suggests the astrologer Carroll '''Righter''', whose face appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about growing interest in the occult on March 21, 1969. Righter, nicknamed "The Gregarious Aquarius," later would read charts for Ronald Reagan, among other celebrities. Also see the note at [[Pages 735-760#742|742.29]].

==Page 33==

33.26 '''Witchcraft Act''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers this interesting elaboration on the reference:
"A few years ago, I came upon a short article in our daily newspaper ''Delo'', which could be interesting here. It says: 'The British spiritualists started a campaign to acquit Helen Duncan, sentenced as a witch during the World War II. She was sentenced as a consequence of a séance in 1942. She told she had seen in her trance a dead soldier wearing a cap with the inscription HMS Barham, who had told her: My ship was sunken. The news about this fact (the ship was supposedly sunken on 25 November 1942) was kept secret by the British government for two years, as Winston Churchill wrote in his diary. In 1944, Duncan was arrested since they were afraid that she would reveal also the date of the D-day. Her trial was based on the Witchcraft Act from 1735, and she was sentenced to nine months of prison. Argument: Helen Duncan pretends that she conjures the spirits of the dead.' It seems that Mexico refers to this case; the year and quotation from the Act correspond to the conviction of Helen Duncan." A web search using Helen Duncan's name will reveal several websites devoted to the "medium martyr."

==Page 36==

36.3 '''ICI''' Standing for Imperial Chemical Industries. one of the foremost British public companies, known as the bellwether of the British economy before its reconfigation and relative demise.

[[image:beaver.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]36.27-28 '''the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver''' 
"Beaver" is the nickname for Jessica’s other and more staid lover, Jeremy. The nickname derives from the ‘40s slang for the beard he sports. (For example, in the "home front" film ''Since You Went Away'' [1944], the bearded character played by Monty Woolley is referred to as "Beaver.") The word also is vulgar slang for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals.

==Page 37==

37.10-11 '''Fred Roper’s Company of Wonder Midgets''' 
[[image:fred-roper.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]This is apparently a real group, although I have no information on them except that a postcard exists captioned "Fred Roper and His Wonderful Midgets" with a tall man in a busby and military greatcoat and a troop of midgets in uniform under the heading "The Toy Soldier Parade." The website for The Princess Theatre Hunstanton (England) notes that the building opened as the Capitol Theatre in 1932. One of the first acts to play there was "Fred Roper and His 20 Wonder Midgets"!

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Pages 20-29

2007-06-27T17:21:31Z

Barryd58: /* Page 25 */

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==Page 20==

20.36 '''TDY''' 
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

20.37 '''East End'''
This is the East End of London, particularly heavily bombed by the Germans in the war as London's docks were situated there. It was, and still is, the area where the poorest people of London live. Famously, Queen Elizabeth's mother made a royal visit there during the war where she was enthusiastically received.

==Page 21==

21.07 '''A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.''' 
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

21.36 '''86’d''' 
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no longer available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

22.04 '''Frick Frack Club''' 
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

25.06-07 '''Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable''' 
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

25. 29 '''Bond Street Underground station'''
This is an station in the wealthier West End of London - also a site in the British version of 'Monopoly'

==Page 26==

26.30 '''back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts''' 
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

26.33 '''British Double Summer Time''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

26.37-38 '''Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.''' 
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

27.04 '''Variable Slothrop''' 
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

27.31-33 '''They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.''' 
[[image:berkshire.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' <ref>''The Berkshire Hills''', Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, 1939</ref>, a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," [http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pynchon.html Pynchon Notes] 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.

==Page 28==

28.02-03 '''paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint''' 
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on <ref>Ibid, p. 238</ref>. Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" <ref>Ibid, p. 143</ref>.

V28.33-34 '''Harrimans and Whitneys gone''' 
The Harrimans are mentioned in passing several times in The Berkshire Hills as being among the wealthy families who spent their summers in the region. William C. Whitney, President Cleveland’s Secretary of the Navy, is specifically mentioned as the founder of a vacation colony in Lenox in 1886 <ref>Ibid, p. 224</ref>.

==Page 29==

29.04 '''Hogan''' 
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

==References==
<references/>

{{GR PbP}}

Pages 20-29

2007-06-27T17:21:13Z

Barryd58: /* Page 25 */

{{GR PbP Text}}

==Page 20==

20.36 '''TDY''' 
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

20.37 '''East End'''
This is the East End of London, particularly heavily bombed by the Germans in the war as London's docks were situated there. It was, and still is, the area where the poorest people of London live. Famously, Queen Elizabeth's mother made a royal visit there during the war where she was enthusiastically received.

==Page 21==

21.07 '''A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.''' 
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

21.36 '''86’d''' 
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no longer available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

22.04 '''Frick Frack Club''' 
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

25.06-07 '''Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable''' 
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

25. 29 '''Bond Street Underground station'''
This is an station in the wealthier West End of London - also a sitein the British version of 'Monopoly'

==Page 26==

26.30 '''back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts''' 
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

26.33 '''British Double Summer Time''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

26.37-38 '''Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.''' 
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

27.04 '''Variable Slothrop''' 
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

27.31-33 '''They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.''' 
[[image:berkshire.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' <ref>''The Berkshire Hills''', Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, 1939</ref>, a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," [http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pynchon.html Pynchon Notes] 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.

==Page 28==

28.02-03 '''paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint''' 
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on <ref>Ibid, p. 238</ref>. Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" <ref>Ibid, p. 143</ref>.

V28.33-34 '''Harrimans and Whitneys gone''' 
The Harrimans are mentioned in passing several times in The Berkshire Hills as being among the wealthy families who spent their summers in the region. William C. Whitney, President Cleveland’s Secretary of the Navy, is specifically mentioned as the founder of a vacation colony in Lenox in 1886 <ref>Ibid, p. 224</ref>.

==Page 29==

29.04 '''Hogan''' 
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

==References==
<references/>

{{GR PbP}}

Pages 20-29

2007-06-27T17:18:06Z

Barryd58: /* Page 20 */

{{GR PbP Text}}

==Page 20==

20.36 '''TDY''' 
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

20.37 '''East End'''
This is the East End of London, particularly heavily bombed by the Germans in the war as London's docks were situated there. It was, and still is, the area where the poorest people of London live. Famously, Queen Elizabeth's mother made a royal visit there during the war where she was enthusiastically received.

==Page 21==

21.07 '''A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.''' 
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

21.36 '''86’d''' 
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no longer available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

22.04 '''Frick Frack Club''' 
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

25.06-07 '''Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable''' 
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

==Page 26==

26.30 '''back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts''' 
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

26.33 '''British Double Summer Time''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

26.37-38 '''Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.''' 
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

27.04 '''Variable Slothrop''' 
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

27.31-33 '''They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.''' 
[[image:berkshire.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' <ref>''The Berkshire Hills''', Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, 1939</ref>, a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," [http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pynchon.html Pynchon Notes] 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.

==Page 28==

28.02-03 '''paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint''' 
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on <ref>Ibid, p. 238</ref>. Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" <ref>Ibid, p. 143</ref>.

V28.33-34 '''Harrimans and Whitneys gone''' 
The Harrimans are mentioned in passing several times in The Berkshire Hills as being among the wealthy families who spent their summers in the region. William C. Whitney, President Cleveland’s Secretary of the Navy, is specifically mentioned as the founder of a vacation colony in Lenox in 1886 <ref>Ibid, p. 224</ref>.

==Page 29==

29.04 '''Hogan''' 
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

==References==
<references/>

{{GR PbP}}

Pages 20-29

2007-06-27T17:16:20Z

Barryd58: /* Page 20 */

{{GR PbP Text}}

==Page 20==

20.36 '''TDY''' 
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

20.37 '''East End'''
This is the East End of London, particularly heavily bombed by the Germans in the war as London's docks were situated there. Famously, Queen Elizabeth's mother made a royal visit there during the war where she was enthusiastically received.

==Page 21==

21.07 '''A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.''' 
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

21.36 '''86’d''' 
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no longer available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

22.04 '''Frick Frack Club''' 
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

25.06-07 '''Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable''' 
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

==Page 26==

26.30 '''back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts''' 
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

26.33 '''British Double Summer Time''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

26.37-38 '''Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.''' 
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

27.04 '''Variable Slothrop''' 
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

27.31-33 '''They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.''' 
[[image:berkshire.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' <ref>''The Berkshire Hills''', Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, 1939</ref>, a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," [http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pynchon.html Pynchon Notes] 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.

==Page 28==

28.02-03 '''paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint''' 
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on <ref>Ibid, p. 238</ref>. Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" <ref>Ibid, p. 143</ref>.

V28.33-34 '''Harrimans and Whitneys gone''' 
The Harrimans are mentioned in passing several times in The Berkshire Hills as being among the wealthy families who spent their summers in the region. William C. Whitney, President Cleveland’s Secretary of the Navy, is specifically mentioned as the founder of a vacation colony in Lenox in 1886 <ref>Ibid, p. 224</ref>.

==Page 29==

29.04 '''Hogan''' 
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

==References==
<references/>

{{GR PbP}}