https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=BenvolioThomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]2026-07-14T04:14:14ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.43.6https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_448-456&diff=3560Pages 448-4562013-11-13T15:00:33Z<p>Benvolio: /* Page 455 */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{GR PbP Text}}<br />
<br />
==Page 448==<br />
448.4 '''''Rücksichtslos'''''<br/><br />
German: inconsiderate or reckless; Pynchon might have been having some fun though--a translation of the three parts of the word would be something like 'back-view-less', an interesting choice for the name of a Toiletship.<br />
<br />
448.23-24 '''like American cowboy actor Henry Fonda'''<br /><br />
Contrary to [[Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow|Weisenburger]], Fonda did not appear "almost exclusively" in Westerns before ''The Grapes of Wrath'' in 1940. He did appear in ''The Trail of the Lonesome Pine'' (1936), but that film is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and is not a Western as such. He played Frank James in ''Jesse James'' (1939) but did not make ''The Return of Frank James'' until 1940. Other Fonda roles in the 1930s included crime dramas (''You Only Live Once''), comedies (''The Male Animal'', ''The Lady Eve''), historical dramas (''Drums along the Mohawk''), and biographical films (''Young Mr. Lincoln''). The description of Albert Speer "leaning akimbo against the wall" bears an anachronistic resemblance to Fonda as Wyatt Earp in some scenes of John Ford’s ''My Darling Clementine'' (1946). (As a side note, both ''The Return of Frank James'' and ''You Only Live Once'' were directed by Fritz Lang, after he had fled Nazi Germany to America.)<br />
<br />
448.26 '''''Kriegsmarine'''''<br/><br />
German: Navy<br />
<br />
448.29 '''''Geschwader'''''<br/><br />
German: squadron<br />
<br />
==Page 449==<br />
[[image:buffalo-bayou.jpg|thumb|Buffalo Bayou|120px|right]]449.15 '''Buf-falo Bayou'''<br /><br />
Buffalo Bayou is in Houston, Texas. Part of it was dredged and cleared over the years to create the Houston Ship Channel.<br />
<br />
==Page 451==<br />
451.25 '''A good ship...'''<br />
<br />
A short concealed poem. See also pages 167, 508, and 626.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Page 452==<br />
452.39-40 '''Ackeret, Busemann, von Kármán and Moore, some Volta Congress papers'''<br/><br />
Jacob Ackeret, Adolf Busemann, Theodore von Kármán, Norton B. Moore: all experts on supersonic flight; 5th Volta Congress on High Speeds in Aviation, held in Rome in 1935<br />
<br />
==Page 453==<br />
453.3 '''the Gomerians whistling... as you sat out on counter the KdF ship'''<br/><br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero_language Silbo Gomero] (Gomeran whistle) was the unique whistle language invented by the extinct Guanche people in the Canary Islands, later adapted to Castilian by Spanish settlers. The purpose of the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) movement was "to inculcate workers with a sense of being an integral part of the racially based national community" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15. edition, 1994. 20:122) Among several attractive leisure-time projects, this program subsidized workers' vacations, including cruises on the Mediterranean or the Baltic Sea; there were [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_durch_Freude four cruisers], see ''Tätigkeiten''. Sailing past the Canary Islands may be pure fiction, enhancing the extinction/genocide theme.<br />
<br />
==Page 454==<br />
454.01 '''in the Pentagon'''<br /><br />
The world’s largest office building was completed in 1943.<br />
<br />
==Page 455==<br />
455.35 '''"Sporri" and "Hawasch"'''<br /><br />
Doctor Mabuse’s two assistants in Fritz Lang’s 1922 film, ''Dr. Mabuse der Spieler''.<br />
<br />
{{GR PbP}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700&diff=3523Pages 674-7002012-08-17T12:59:16Z<p>Benvolio: /* Page 675 */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{GR PbP Text}}<br />
<br />
==Page 674==<br />
674.10 '''a City of the Future'''<br /><br />
Evokes, again, the opening images of Lang’s ''Metropolis''. See [[Pages 482-488#Page 482|482.25]].<br />
<br />
'''Travel here gets complicated -- a system of buildings that move, by right angles, along the grooves of the Raketen-Stadt's street-grid. You can also raise or lower the building itself, a dozen floors per second, to desired heights or levels underground, like a submarine skipper with his periscope'''...<br /><br />
This imagery was appropriated for the set designs and special effects of the 1998 film<br />
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/combined Dark City].http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700&action=edit&section=1<br />
Editing Pages 674-700 (section) - Thomas Pynchon Wiki | Gravity's Rainbow<br />
<br />
==Page 675==<br />
'''Marcel'''<br /><br />
It's possible that Marcel signifies the great French novelist Marcel Proust in some way:<br />
<br />
:"Am I positive that Marcel indicates Proust? No. But there's a lot of circumstantial evidence: he's named "Marcel," he's French, he's a genius. These three facts alone in a vacuum would point strongly to Marcel Proust. But Pynchon also gives Marcel shiny black hair, links him with the 19th century, and portrays him as extremely long-winded." - Erik Ketzan, [https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/30 Pynchon Nods: Proust in Gravity’s Rainbow]<br />
<br />
==Page 676==<br />
675.33 '''at best they manage to emerge...'''<br /><br />
The description of decisions emerging from a chaos of competing forces echoes Pynchon's letter to Jules Siegel in 1965, [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_World_is_at_Fault The World is at Fault], in which Pynchon describes the journey of our souls through "whatever obsolescenses, bigotries, theories of education workable and un, parental wisdom or lack of it, happen to get in its more or less (random) pilgrimage..."<br />
<br />
==Page 682==<br />
682.18 '''Ho-zay'''<br /><br />
Another of Nalline’s transliterations: "Jose," for Joseph.<br />
<br />
==Page 684==<br />
[[image:william-bendix.jpg|thumb|William Bendix in ''Lifeboat''|150px|right]]684.31-32 '''William Bendix'''<br /><br />
An appropriate supporting role for Bendix would be his part in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_(film) Hitchcock’s ''Lifeboat''] (1944), in which he plays a lindy-hopping sailor whose leg has to be amputated.<br />
<br />
==Page 685==<br />
685.21-22 '''"My Prelude to a Kiss," "Tenement Symphony"'''<br /><br />
The former song (actually titled just "Prelude to a Kiss") is a 1945 composition by Duke Ellington with Irving Gordon and Irving Mills; the latter was composed by Hal Borne, with words by Sid Kullen and Roy Golden, and sung by Tony Martin in the 1941 Marx Brothers movie ''The Big Store''.<br />
<br />
685.26 '''sexcrime fantasy'''<br /><br />
The term "sexcrime" was invented as a Newspeak word by George Orwell in 1984. It refers to sex used for pleasure instead of simple procreation, an offense in the totalitarian state of the book.<br />
<br />
685.28 '''MY DOPER’S CADENZA'''<br /><br />
The ''New World Dictionary'' defines "cadenza" as "an elaborate, often improvised musical passage by played by an unaccompanied instrument in a concerto, usually near the end of the first movement."<br />
<br />
==Page 688==<br />
[[image:fay-wray2.jpg|thumb|Fay Wray|120px|right]]688.36-37 '''Fay Wray . . . in her screentest scene with Robert Armstrong'''<br /><br />
Ann Darrow’s (Fay Wray) screentest is only peripherally "erotic mugging." She is instructed by Carl Denham (played by Armstrong) to look up and react in fear (in anticipation of her first actual view of King Kong, of whom she knows nothing yet). She is so caught up in her performance that she actually faints. It is this scene that Jessica mimics with Roger earlier in the novel.<br />
<br />
==Page 689==<br />
689.26 '''a round black iron anarchist bomb'''<br /><br />
Another reference to the Porky Pig cartoon "The Blow-Out." The Mad Bomber puts such a device, along with a lot of other explosives, into an alarm clock rigged to explode.<br />
<br />
==Page 691==<br />
691.34-35 '''Paranoid . . . For The Day!'''<br /><br />
The TV game show [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_for_a_Day ''Queen for a Day''] debuted as a radio show in 1945 with host Jack Bailey.<br />
<br />
==Page 693==<br />
'''MB DRO ROSHI'''<br />
When discussing GR, the writer Alan Moore recalled this sequence as "the whole point of the novel... It’s just this bit of burnt paper that, if you put it together, talks about America dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Which is of course, the end of the V bomb, which has been made obsolete. Gravity’s got a new rainbow." [http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/12/alan-moore-dodgem-logic/3/ source].<br><br />
<br />
Note also that 'roshi' is Japanese for 'teacher': Rōshi (老師?) (Chinese pinyin: Lǎoshī; Sanskrit: ṛṣi) is a Japanese honorific title used in Zen Buddhism that literally means "old teacher" or "elder master" and sometimes denotes a person who gives spiritual guidance to a Zen sangha or congregation.(Wikipedia)<br />
<br />
==Page 695==<br />
695.25-28 '''Dungannon, Virginia . . . or Ellis, Kansas.'''<br /><br />
[[Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow|Weisenburger]]’s usual attention to geographical detail fails here. He does not find these towns on the borders of time zones in 1988 because the zones had been changed, shifting to the west, in the previous decades. All of the towns Pynchon names were on the borders of time zones in 1945 (and Murdo and Apalachicola still are). Kenosha itself borders Lake Michigan through which the Eastern-Central Time Zone border runs.<br />
<br />
==Page 697==<br />
'''American Hotchkisses are the guns that raked through the unarmed Indians at Wounded Knee.'''<br />
Wounded Knee massacre was the last major armed conflict between the Dakota Sioux and the United States, subsequently described as a "massacre" by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.<br />
<br />
On December 29, 1890, five hundred troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece capable of rapid fire), surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) and Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota)[2] with orders to escort them to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. The commander of the 7th had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding and placed his men in too close proximity to the Dakota, alarming them. Shooting broke out near the end of the disarmament, and accounts differ regarding who fired first and why.<br />
<br />
By the time it was over, 25 troopers and 300 Dakota Sioux lay dead, including men, women, and children.<br />
<br />
[[Pages 734-760#Page 752|Also, see note for p. 752]]; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre Wikipedia entry for Wounded Knee Massacre]<br />
{{GR PbP}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_397-433&diff=3522Pages 397-4332012-07-28T10:41:31Z<p>Benvolio: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{GR PbP Text}}<br />
<br />
==Page 398==<br />
[[image:hansel-gretel.jpg|thumb|''Hansel and Gretel''|100px|right]]'''dog with the saucer eyes . . . beard of the goat on the bridge . . . the troll below . . . plastic witch . . . Hansel . . . Gretel'''<br /><br />
Features at Zwolfkinder, all evoking children’s fairy tales: "The Tinder Box," the Billy Goats Gruff, Hansel and Gretel.<br />
<br />
'''398:29 Zwölfkinder<br/>'''<br />
"Twelve Children" - the name evokes Jacob's twelve sons (and the daughter who is not one of the official twelve). This pattern is self-consciously repeated in the Grimms' tale [http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm009.html "The Twelve Brothers"], where the boys are to die if their mother gives birth to a girl.<br/><br />
<br />
The camp, which is also a quasi-town, may be modelled after Theresienstadt, the Jewish town/Lager set up by the Nazis in what is now the Czech Republic. This is suggested by themes like transit, phoney children's paradise, as well as the large orchestra, or the number 60,000 (the number of those who "passed through" Zwölfkinder as well the population of Theresienstadt at its peak). It also recalls another totalitarian institution, that of the communist "children's towns" (large, town-like, somewhat militarized holiday camps for Young Pioneers), whose prototype was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artek_(camp) Artek] in the Soviet Union. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Jungvolk Deutsches Jungvolk] also had its summer camps.)<br />
<br />
==Page 402==<br />
'''The Spree'''<br /><br />
A river, not a canal, that runs through Berlin.<br />
<br />
'''who would eat an apple in the street'''<br /><br />
A phrase of German/Yiddish origin, suggesting a poor person of no breeding.<br />
<br />
==Page 403==<br />
[[image:kyudo-target.jpg|thumb|Zen Target|150px|right]]'''Zen bow and roll of pressed straw'''<br /><br />
Archery is a sport often associated with Zen discipline in Japan, where it is known as ''kyūdō''. Many archers practice ''kyūdō'' as a sport, with marksmanship being paramount. However, the goal most devotees of kyūdō seek is ''seisha seichu'', "correct shooting is correct hitting". The archer seeks not to hit a target but (according to some sources) to become one with the arrow as it flies, as Fahringer advocates becoming "one with the Rocket." One of the earliest introductions of ''kyūdō'' in the west was by a German, Eugen Herrigel, who studied Zen and archery in Japan in the 1930s. His ''Zen in the Art of Archery'' (1953) remains a classic in its field. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyudo Wikipedia entry]<br />
<br />
'''bodhisattva'''<br /><br />
In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a "Buddhist saint," one who has nearly attained nirvana but delays it in order to aid others. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva Wikipedia entry]<br />
<br />
==Page 405==<br />
'''good company at Herr Halliger’s Inn'''<br /><br />
Note the echo of the title of von Goll’s perverse film.<br />
<br />
==Page 411==<br />
'''411.16 Atlantes'''<br/><br />
An [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(architecture) Atlas] or Atlant (named after the Greek mythological figure which it it represents) is a column, pillar, or pilaster in the shape of a man, who bears the weight on his head or shoulders. It was a popular element in continental Beaux-Arts architecture (that is, in Kekulé's time.)<br />
<br />
==Page 412==<br />
'''"I lost my heart in Heidelberg"'''<br /><br />
Although [[Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow|Weisenburger]] asserts that the song derives from Tony Bennet’s recording "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," there are more likely origins. The title suggests the lyrics to "I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen" (see note at V134.27) or "Avalon" ("I found my love in Avalon") by Al Jolson and Vincent Rose. In addition, the lyric suggests Sigmund Romberg’s venerable operetta ''The Student Prince'', about the heir to a throne who falls in love with a barmaid in the university town. The show also features the song "Gaudeamus Igitur" (V432.13).<br />
<br />
:Igor Zabel offers a more a concrete reference: "I lost my heart in Heidelberg": a popular German song from the twenties: "Ich hab' mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren". The song was written for a musical of the same name by German composer Fred Raymond. [[I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg|Read the lyrics...]]<br />
<br />
==Page 413==<br />
'''"once, only once"'''<br /><br />
What Rilke poem is this?<br />
*Rilke sometimes (often?) addresses the reader with "you" ("Weren’t you always distracted by expectation, as if every event announced a beloved? - ''Duino Elegies''), which Pynchon does often in these surrounding pages.<br />
<br />
==Page 421==<br />
'''Juch-heiereasas-sa! O-tempo-tempora!'''<br /><br />
From the song "Ein lustger Musikante marschierte am Nil" by Emmanuel Geibel (1815-1884). [http://ingeb.org/Lieder/einlustg.html German words and midi music]<br />
<br />
==Page 422==<br />
'''love something like the persistence of vision'''<br /><br />
"The notion of 'persistence of vision' seems to have been appropriated from psychology". From Herbert's essay below.<br><br />
The term "persistence of vision" is still in popular use, and fits Pynchon’s (and Pokler’s) needs well in this context.<br />
<br />
The phrase "persistence of vision:" has long been misapplied to explanations of how the spectator perceives motion from the sequential flashing of still images on film. The term &#151; which usually refers to the positive afterimage retained by the retina of the eye &#151; has been rejected by psychologists and students of perception as imprecise and misleading. The illusion of motion is actually a much more complicated process, involving several elements of cognition. A very good synopsis of the problems with the term by Stephen Herbert is available [http://www.grand-illusions.com/percept.htm here].<br />
<br />
<br />
==Page 425==<br />
'''425.24ff you go and sit exactly on the target...one is safest at the center of the target area'''<br /><br />
<br />
Major-General Dr. Walter Dornberger, head of Peenemünde rocket development and von Braun's superior, actually made this suggestion when the airburst problem resisted solution: "the bull's eye is the safest spot on the map." Instead of sending a sacrificial underling such as Pokler to do the sitting, Dornberger and von Braun, to their credit, sat their own personal asses down on the target. They did this every day for about a week. On the very last rocket observed from the target, von Braun<br />
:"was standing in an open field [and]... beheld the rocket coming out of the blue sky." To his horror, he realized it was pointed straight at them [Dornberger, v.B] -- it would be a direct hit. "I threw myself down to the ground, but a moment later a terrific explosion hurled me high into the air. I landed in a ditch and noted with some amazement that I...had not suffered as much as a scratch." quoted in Neufeld, ''Von Braun'', p.181.<br />
<br />
'''425.32-33 Ground Zero'''<br><br />
Another, apparently ironic, anachronism (or anatopism). The term [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_zero Ground Zero], originally the hypocenter of an atomic bomb explosion, was coined by participants of the Manhattan Project, after the test stand at Trinity Site. It had, of course, no equivalent in pre-1945 German military slang. But the starting point in time for the Pökler detour is preceded by the first nuclear explosion, as the Trinity device was tested on July 16, 1945, the opening day of the Potsdam Conference.<br />
<br />
==Page 429==<br />
'''429.5 searchlights... in Wismar and in Lübeck'''<br/><br />
That would locate Zwölfkinder in present-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, near the Bay of Lübeck, and also between the bright and dark aspects of the continental tradition. Lübeck, apart from being vitctimized in the raid which is prominent in "Beyond the Zero", was Thomas Mann's city, while Wismar is the port where Nosferatu embarks for England.<br />
<br />
==Page 432==<br />
'''"Gaudeumus igitur"'''<br /><br />
Igor Zabel elaborates further on Weisenburger's note:<br />
<br />
:"The song is a symbol of the university (as such) and its anthem (e.g., it is sometimes performed at ceremonial occasions). The mentioning here refers to the "feeling of graduation". ''Gaudeamus igitur'' is traditionally sung by the students of the final class of Gymnasium (i.e., university students to-be) as they celebrate their graduation."<br />
<br />
'''Obersturmbannfuehrer'''<br /><br />
A rank in the SS, which corresponds to the Lieutenant Colonel.<br />
<br />
{{GR PbP}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_covers&diff=3521Gravity's Rainbow covers2012-07-10T22:02:22Z<p>Benvolio: /* Frank Miller cover */</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
==First Edition, USA==<br />
Designed by artist Marc Getter when he was only 25 years old. [[Marc_Getter_-_Designer_and_Artist|Profile of Marc Getter]].<br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="2" style="border: 0px solid darkgray;"<br />
! width="140" |<br />
! width="150" |<br />
|- border="0"<br />
| [[image:grcover1.jpg|200px|left|First American edition, 1973]]<br />
|- align="center"<br />
| || ||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==2006 Frank Miller cover==<br />
According to ''Variety'', "Penguin Classics was redesigning its line of influential novels and asked Pynchon if he'd like a new jacket for his novel "Gravity's Rainbow." At first Pynchon resisted, says publicist Caroline Farrington. But he came back and said he'd allow it, on one condition: if Miller did the design." [http://pynchonoid.blogspot.de/2006/05/p-chooses-cover-artist-for-new.html]<br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="2" style="border: 0px solid darkgray;"<br />
! width="140" |<br />
! width="150" |<br />
|- border="0"<br />
| [[image:grcovermiller.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition|Cover art by comic book artist Frank Miller]]<br />
|- align="center"<br />
| || ||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Various international editions==<br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="2" style="border: 0px solid darkgray;"<br />
! width="140" |<br />
! width="150" |<br />
|- border="0"<br />
| [[Image:GR_Greek2.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Greek edition]]<br />
|- align="center"<br />
| || ||<br />
|}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_covers&diff=3520Gravity's Rainbow covers2012-07-10T22:01:57Z<p>Benvolio: </p>
<hr />
<div><br />
==First Edition, USA==<br />
Designed by artist Marc Getter when he was only 25 years old. [[Marc_Getter_-_Designer_and_Artist|Profile of Marc Getter]].<br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="2" style="border: 0px solid darkgray;"<br />
! width="140" |<br />
! width="150" |<br />
|- border="0"<br />
| [[image:grcover1.jpg|200px|left|First American edition, 1973]]<br />
|- align="center"<br />
| || ||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Frank Miller cover==<br />
According to ''Variety'', "Penguin Classics was redesigning its line of influential novels and asked Pynchon if he'd like a new jacket for his novel "Gravity's Rainbow." At first Pynchon resisted, says publicist Caroline Farrington. But he came back and said he'd allow it, on one condition: if Miller did the design." [http://pynchonoid.blogspot.de/2006/05/p-chooses-cover-artist-for-new.html]<br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="2" style="border: 0px solid darkgray;"<br />
! width="140" |<br />
! width="150" |<br />
|- border="0"<br />
| [[image:grcovermiller.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition|Cover art by comic book artist Frank Miller]]<br />
|- align="center"<br />
| || ||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Various international editions==<br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="2" style="border: 0px solid darkgray;"<br />
! width="140" |<br />
! width="150" |<br />
|- border="0"<br />
| [[Image:GR_Greek2.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Greek edition]]<br />
|- align="center"<br />
| || ||<br />
|}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Benvolio&diff=3519User talk:Benvolio2012-07-10T21:25:30Z<p>Benvolio: Created page with "Hi."</p>
<hr />
<div>Hi.</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Benvolio&diff=3518User:Benvolio2012-07-10T21:25:16Z<p>Benvolio: Created page with "Hello!"</p>
<hr />
<div>Hello!</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_Title&diff=3517Gravity's Rainbow Title2012-07-10T21:24:57Z<p>Benvolio: /* References to the title within GR */</p>
<hr />
<div>==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
<br />
According to Gerald Howard, who was an assistant editor at Viking Penguin during GR's editorial process, Pynchon submitted the manuscript without a title, "which at some point acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures... Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection." ''See'' "Pynchon from A to V", Bookforum, Summer 2005. [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html]<br />
<br />
[[image:Mindless-Pleasures.jpg|thumb|200px|Artwork for Mindless Pleasures?|right]]<br />
Many paperback houses got the manuscript under the title Mindless Pleasures to read for paperback consideration. That title picks up a concept articulated in Pynchon's first published short story, ''The Small Rain''. (how?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the title within GR==<br />
<br />
The word "gravity" appears 28 times in the novel, while "rainbow" appears 16 times. <br />
<br />
The most widely agreed-upon interpretation is that the title "Gravity's Rainbow" refers to the shape of the V-2 rocket's trajectory, a rainbow-shaped parabola caused by gravity. This derives most explicitly from page 209:<br />
<br />
:"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice &#151; guessed and refused to believe &#151; that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow, and they its children...."<br />
<br />
This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the original hard-cover editions of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' had a parabola intaglioed into the front cover.<br />
<br />
A couple other passage contain possible interpretations:<br />
<br />
Page 590:<br />
<br />
:"To find that Gravity [...] is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody...having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side [...]" 590<br />
<br />
There, "gravity's rainbow" could be interpreted to mean the manifold, infinitely complex layers of strata that form the Earth.<br />
<br />
Page 166:<br />
<br />
:"We passed over the coal-tars. A thousand different molecules waited in the preterite dung. [...] This is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, leaping to Earth's light from its grave miles and aeons below." 166<br />
<br />
There, Gravity's rainbow could be the many colors synthesized from coal-tar.<br />
<br />
==Andrew Dinn Speculates==<br />
The following is one-time [http://waste.org/pynchon-l/ Pynchon List] member Andrew Dinn's speculation:<br />
<br />
Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the other day, I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem called "Schwerkraft ("Gravity") written in October 1924. I believe it is very likely to be be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
:Mitte, wie du aus allen<br /><br />
:dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich<br /><br />
:wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.<br />
<br />
:Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst<br /><br />
:Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.<br />
<br />
:Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,<br /><br />
:wie aus lagernder Wolke,<br /><br />
:reichlicher Regen der Schwere.<br />
<br />
The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael Hamburger and goes as follows:<br />
<br />
:Centre, how from them all <br />
:you draw yourself, even from flying creatures <br />
:win back yourself, centre, the strongest.<br />
<br />
:The standing man<br /><br />
:as drink through thirst<br /><br />
:gravity rushes through him.<br />
<br />
:But from the sleeper falls,<br /><br />
:as from a cloud at rest,<br /><br />
:gravity's plentiful rain.<br />
<br />
As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes, "Schwerkraft" is definitively "gravity," the attractive force, whereas "Schwere" in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness, although it can stand in for "Schwerkraft."<br />
<br />
So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain and gravity in the last line ought to be cause enough for speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging down those who try to fly away.<br />
<br />
But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between the standing &#151; or striving? &#151; man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures and achieves some form of liberation from heaviness, seriousness.<br />
<br />
And, of course, after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain shower, what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm but a rainbow?<br />
<br />
==Jules Siegel Speculates==<br />
Jules was Pynchon's roommate at Cornell and they stayed in touch for some years after graduating. In 1977, Jules wrote an article for Playboy magazine, "Who is Thomas Pynchon ... and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?". [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson|More here...]]<br />
<br />
The following are Jules Siegel's speculations, with input from Sean Klein:<br />
<br />
At 01:17 PM 05/21/97 PDT, wrote: <nowiki>[snip material about clarity, etc.]</nowiki><br />
<br />
I think that Pynchon is at his most superior when he's writing clearly. Someone said earlier that his writing is actually often quite clear, but his plots are difficult. I think that's because he doesn't have plots in the conventional sense. It's one of the more appealing qualities of his writing. You don't have to begin ''Gravity's Rainbow'' at the beginning. There is no beginning. It does open with a specific scene, but the book's organization is topological rather than logical. It describes a space and its contents, which relate to each other the way furniture and decorations in a room relate to the room and to each other. There is some sense of chronological time, but it is not very important in the novel's structure, which takes you through an exploration of a multi-dimensional map.<br />
<br />
The space described by this map is ''Gravity's Rainbow'' &#151; the parabola of the rocket vs the arc of the rainbow, but also the whole range of life as seen in the most primitive form &#151; just shit rearranging itself in new forms through eternity. I think that's the reason for so much fecal imagery.<br />
<br />
When I first started corresponding with Andrew Dinn, I wrote:<br />
<br />
:"I wonder if anyone has commented on what it means: we are Gravity's Rainbow. You know &#151; the spectrum is a manifestation of light energy. So Gravity's Rainbow would be the spectrum of gravity &#151; all that has mass, I guess. But I don't really think it applies, because gravity isn't energy; it's an effect of the shape of space, supposedly. I think that gravity's really just another manifestation of what we call sexual attraction, love, that which brings one to join with another."<br />
<br />
Andrew replied:<br />
<br />
:"Bravo Jules, but you should be writing this to the list. Others have played with that idea but usually without communicating what lies behind it so succinctly and cogently."<br />
<br />
This is how I got involved in all this to begin with. Thanks a lot, Andrew. But let us continue. I wrote that on the basis of skimming the book in 1974. In the past few weeks I've been looking through it more carefully. I think my initial reaction was correct.<br />
<br />
Gravity's Rainbow is the Periodic Table of the Elements acted out by cartoon puppets. Think of a school play with kids in colored costumes being the different colors of the spectrum &#151; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet &#151; and acting out little skits with songs symbolizing the nature of each color. Now extend the metaphor to the Elements, only use weirdos to play them. They are kind of crawling around in the muck bopping each other like the Three Stooges. They rise up in spirit and become beautiful and glowing and then they sink back into the muck again &#151; or the Rocket sinks them again. Or They contrive to keep them down.<br />
<br />
These are preliminary thoughts. My main point is that the book is about the leap from shit through flesh to spirit and that this process is Gravity's Rainbow. The process is not described as a linear plot, but as eruptions along a continuum. The continuum is not any place in particular but the stuff of the book itself. If you look through the book, you'll find specific references to gravity as a manifestation of the life force and the planet as a living organism.<br />
<br />
With a book of this magnitude with so many subjects and so many mystical and mathematical allusions, *any* number can be made to seem a significant number.<br />
<br />
This is very true and is the basis of most mystical numerological confabulation.<br />
<br />
I think it's helpful to look at mathematical representations of feedback, the way a rocket homes in on a target.<br />
<br />
When you look at astrological signs as descriptions of states of energy this becomes even more interesting:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align:center"><br />
'''Aries''' Seeds &#151; Springing forward &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Taurus''' Planting &#151; Ploughing forward &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Gemini''' Leaves and Flowers &#151; Opening outward &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Cancer''' Nursing breasts &#151; Condensing tides &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Leo''' Fruits &#151; Blazing summer &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Virgo''' Harvest &#151; Cooling off &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Libra''' Weighing &#151; Diffusion &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Scorpio''' Storage &#151; Privacy &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Sagittarius''' Hunting &#151; Arrow flight &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Capricorn''' Forage &#151; Nimble &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Aquarius''' Lightning &#151; Crackling &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Pisces''' Rain &#151; Falling &#151; Water<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
Astrology is an agricultural almanac. Each sign represents a state of energy. Fire, Earth, Air and Water are actually almost exactly equivalent to Plasma, Solid, Gas, and Liquid. In the system above, you can see that a growth cycle is being described, beginning with the enthusiastic spurt of the germinating seed, which then turns to the plodding cow, then to the opening of the buds of the leaves and so on.<br />
<br />
Each state of energy is opposite to (or a correction of) the previous one, but in a different direction. Now remove the astrological symbolism and simply view the transformations of energy as the underlying state of the cosmos. Whether you then translate this as Tarot or Astrology or I-Ching or whatever, you are always dealing with the same process of self correcting feedback.<br />
<br />
In other words, Gravity's Rainbow.<br />
<br />
&copy; Jules Siegel<br />
<br />
<br />
==Random and semi-random associations==<br />
<br />
In Genesis 9:13-15, the first rainbow is a token of God's covenant not to destroy humanity again &#151; or not with a flood, anyway. As an old spiritual has it: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time."<br><br />
God's covenant was even stronger, in Genesis:<br><br />
Genesis 9: 16 "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
Genesis 9: 17 "And God said unto Noah, This ''is'' the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
<br />
Gravity is also what gives objects massed weight. Cf. a major evil character taking on mass in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']p.743<br />
<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_Title&diff=3516Gravity's Rainbow Title2012-07-10T21:21:29Z<p>Benvolio: /* References to the title within GR */</p>
<hr />
<div>==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
<br />
According to Gerald Howard, who was an assistant editor at Viking Penguin during GR's editorial process, Pynchon submitted the manuscript without a title, "which at some point acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures... Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection." ''See'' "Pynchon from A to V", Bookforum, Summer 2005. [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html]<br />
<br />
[[image:Mindless-Pleasures.jpg|thumb|200px|Artwork for Mindless Pleasures?|right]]<br />
Many paperback houses got the manuscript under the title Mindless Pleasures to read for paperback consideration. That title picks up a concept articulated in Pynchon's first published short story, ''The Small Rain''. (how?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the title within GR==<br />
<br />
The word "gravity" appears 28 times in the novel, while "rainbow" appears 16 times. <br />
<br />
The most widely agreed-upon interpretation is that the title refers to the shape of the V-2 rocket's trajectory, a rainbow-shaped parabola caused by gravity. This derives most explicitly from page 209:<br />
<br />
:"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice &#151; guessed and refused to believe &#151; that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow, and they its children...."<br />
<br />
This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the original hard-cover editions of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' had a parabola intaglioed into the front cover.<br />
<br />
A couple other passage contain possible interpretations:<br />
<br />
Page 590:<br />
<br />
:"To find that Gravity [...] is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody...having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side [...]" 590<br />
<br />
There, "gravity's rainbow" could be interpreted to mean the manifold, infinitely complex layers of strata that form the Earth.<br />
<br />
Page 166:<br />
<br />
:"We passed over the coal-tars. A thousand different molecules waited in the preterite dung. [...] This is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, leaping to Earth's light from its grave miles and aeons below." 166<br />
<br />
There, Gravity's rainbow could be the many colors synthesized from coal-tar.<br />
<br />
==Andrew Dinn Speculates==<br />
The following is one-time [http://waste.org/pynchon-l/ Pynchon List] member Andrew Dinn's speculation:<br />
<br />
Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the other day, I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem called "Schwerkraft ("Gravity") written in October 1924. I believe it is very likely to be be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
:Mitte, wie du aus allen<br /><br />
:dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich<br /><br />
:wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.<br />
<br />
:Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst<br /><br />
:Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.<br />
<br />
:Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,<br /><br />
:wie aus lagernder Wolke,<br /><br />
:reichlicher Regen der Schwere.<br />
<br />
The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael Hamburger and goes as follows:<br />
<br />
:Centre, how from them all <br />
:you draw yourself, even from flying creatures <br />
:win back yourself, centre, the strongest.<br />
<br />
:The standing man<br /><br />
:as drink through thirst<br /><br />
:gravity rushes through him.<br />
<br />
:But from the sleeper falls,<br /><br />
:as from a cloud at rest,<br /><br />
:gravity's plentiful rain.<br />
<br />
As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes, "Schwerkraft" is definitively "gravity," the attractive force, whereas "Schwere" in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness, although it can stand in for "Schwerkraft."<br />
<br />
So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain and gravity in the last line ought to be cause enough for speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging down those who try to fly away.<br />
<br />
But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between the standing &#151; or striving? &#151; man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures and achieves some form of liberation from heaviness, seriousness.<br />
<br />
And, of course, after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain shower, what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm but a rainbow?<br />
<br />
==Jules Siegel Speculates==<br />
Jules was Pynchon's roommate at Cornell and they stayed in touch for some years after graduating. In 1977, Jules wrote an article for Playboy magazine, "Who is Thomas Pynchon ... and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?". [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson|More here...]]<br />
<br />
The following are Jules Siegel's speculations, with input from Sean Klein:<br />
<br />
At 01:17 PM 05/21/97 PDT, wrote: <nowiki>[snip material about clarity, etc.]</nowiki><br />
<br />
I think that Pynchon is at his most superior when he's writing clearly. Someone said earlier that his writing is actually often quite clear, but his plots are difficult. I think that's because he doesn't have plots in the conventional sense. It's one of the more appealing qualities of his writing. You don't have to begin ''Gravity's Rainbow'' at the beginning. There is no beginning. It does open with a specific scene, but the book's organization is topological rather than logical. It describes a space and its contents, which relate to each other the way furniture and decorations in a room relate to the room and to each other. There is some sense of chronological time, but it is not very important in the novel's structure, which takes you through an exploration of a multi-dimensional map.<br />
<br />
The space described by this map is ''Gravity's Rainbow'' &#151; the parabola of the rocket vs the arc of the rainbow, but also the whole range of life as seen in the most primitive form &#151; just shit rearranging itself in new forms through eternity. I think that's the reason for so much fecal imagery.<br />
<br />
When I first started corresponding with Andrew Dinn, I wrote:<br />
<br />
:"I wonder if anyone has commented on what it means: we are Gravity's Rainbow. You know &#151; the spectrum is a manifestation of light energy. So Gravity's Rainbow would be the spectrum of gravity &#151; all that has mass, I guess. But I don't really think it applies, because gravity isn't energy; it's an effect of the shape of space, supposedly. I think that gravity's really just another manifestation of what we call sexual attraction, love, that which brings one to join with another."<br />
<br />
Andrew replied:<br />
<br />
:"Bravo Jules, but you should be writing this to the list. Others have played with that idea but usually without communicating what lies behind it so succinctly and cogently."<br />
<br />
This is how I got involved in all this to begin with. Thanks a lot, Andrew. But let us continue. I wrote that on the basis of skimming the book in 1974. In the past few weeks I've been looking through it more carefully. I think my initial reaction was correct.<br />
<br />
Gravity's Rainbow is the Periodic Table of the Elements acted out by cartoon puppets. Think of a school play with kids in colored costumes being the different colors of the spectrum &#151; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet &#151; and acting out little skits with songs symbolizing the nature of each color. Now extend the metaphor to the Elements, only use weirdos to play them. They are kind of crawling around in the muck bopping each other like the Three Stooges. They rise up in spirit and become beautiful and glowing and then they sink back into the muck again &#151; or the Rocket sinks them again. Or They contrive to keep them down.<br />
<br />
These are preliminary thoughts. My main point is that the book is about the leap from shit through flesh to spirit and that this process is Gravity's Rainbow. The process is not described as a linear plot, but as eruptions along a continuum. The continuum is not any place in particular but the stuff of the book itself. If you look through the book, you'll find specific references to gravity as a manifestation of the life force and the planet as a living organism.<br />
<br />
With a book of this magnitude with so many subjects and so many mystical and mathematical allusions, *any* number can be made to seem a significant number.<br />
<br />
This is very true and is the basis of most mystical numerological confabulation.<br />
<br />
I think it's helpful to look at mathematical representations of feedback, the way a rocket homes in on a target.<br />
<br />
When you look at astrological signs as descriptions of states of energy this becomes even more interesting:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align:center"><br />
'''Aries''' Seeds &#151; Springing forward &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Taurus''' Planting &#151; Ploughing forward &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Gemini''' Leaves and Flowers &#151; Opening outward &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Cancer''' Nursing breasts &#151; Condensing tides &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Leo''' Fruits &#151; Blazing summer &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Virgo''' Harvest &#151; Cooling off &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Libra''' Weighing &#151; Diffusion &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Scorpio''' Storage &#151; Privacy &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Sagittarius''' Hunting &#151; Arrow flight &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Capricorn''' Forage &#151; Nimble &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Aquarius''' Lightning &#151; Crackling &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Pisces''' Rain &#151; Falling &#151; Water<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
Astrology is an agricultural almanac. Each sign represents a state of energy. Fire, Earth, Air and Water are actually almost exactly equivalent to Plasma, Solid, Gas, and Liquid. In the system above, you can see that a growth cycle is being described, beginning with the enthusiastic spurt of the germinating seed, which then turns to the plodding cow, then to the opening of the buds of the leaves and so on.<br />
<br />
Each state of energy is opposite to (or a correction of) the previous one, but in a different direction. Now remove the astrological symbolism and simply view the transformations of energy as the underlying state of the cosmos. Whether you then translate this as Tarot or Astrology or I-Ching or whatever, you are always dealing with the same process of self correcting feedback.<br />
<br />
In other words, Gravity's Rainbow.<br />
<br />
&copy; Jules Siegel<br />
<br />
<br />
==Random and semi-random associations==<br />
<br />
In Genesis 9:13-15, the first rainbow is a token of God's covenant not to destroy humanity again &#151; or not with a flood, anyway. As an old spiritual has it: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time."<br><br />
God's covenant was even stronger, in Genesis:<br><br />
Genesis 9: 16 "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
Genesis 9: 17 "And God said unto Noah, This ''is'' the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
<br />
Gravity is also what gives objects massed weight. Cf. a major evil character taking on mass in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']p.743<br />
<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_Title&diff=3515Gravity's Rainbow Title2012-07-10T21:19:16Z<p>Benvolio: /* Random and semi-random associations */</p>
<hr />
<div>==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
<br />
According to Gerald Howard, who was an assistant editor at Viking Penguin during GR's editorial process, Pynchon submitted the manuscript without a title, "which at some point acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures... Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection." ''See'' "Pynchon from A to V", Bookforum, Summer 2005. [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html]<br />
<br />
[[image:Mindless-Pleasures.jpg|thumb|200px|Artwork for Mindless Pleasures?|right]]<br />
Many paperback houses got the manuscript under the title Mindless Pleasures to read for paperback consideration. That title picks up a concept articulated in Pynchon's first published short story, ''The Small Rain''. (how?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the title within GR==<br />
<br />
The word "gravity" appears 28 times in the novel, while "rainbow" appears 16 times. <br />
<br />
The primary interpretation, that the title refers to the shape of the V-2 rocket's trajectory, a rainbow-shaped parabola caused by gravity, derives most explicitly from page 209:<br />
<br />
:"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice &#151; guessed and refused to believe &#151; that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow, and they its children...."<br />
<br />
The title could also be interpreted through page 590:<br />
<br />
:"To find that Gravity [...] is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody...having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side [...]" 590<br />
<br />
There, "gravity's rainbow" could be interpreted to mean the manifold, infinitely complex layers of strata that form the Earth.<br />
<br />
Gravity's rainbow could also be the many colors synthesized from coal-tar:<br />
<br />
:"We passed over the coal-tars. A thousand different molecules waited in the preterite dung. [...] This is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, leaping to Earth's light from its grave miles and aeons below." 166<br />
<br />
<br />
==Andrew Dinn Speculates==<br />
The following is one-time [http://waste.org/pynchon-l/ Pynchon List] member Andrew Dinn's speculation:<br />
<br />
Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the other day, I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem called "Schwerkraft ("Gravity") written in October 1924. I believe it is very likely to be be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
:Mitte, wie du aus allen<br /><br />
:dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich<br /><br />
:wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.<br />
<br />
:Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst<br /><br />
:Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.<br />
<br />
:Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,<br /><br />
:wie aus lagernder Wolke,<br /><br />
:reichlicher Regen der Schwere.<br />
<br />
The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael Hamburger and goes as follows:<br />
<br />
:Centre, how from them all <br />
:you draw yourself, even from flying creatures <br />
:win back yourself, centre, the strongest.<br />
<br />
:The standing man<br /><br />
:as drink through thirst<br /><br />
:gravity rushes through him.<br />
<br />
:But from the sleeper falls,<br /><br />
:as from a cloud at rest,<br /><br />
:gravity's plentiful rain.<br />
<br />
As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes, "Schwerkraft" is definitively "gravity," the attractive force, whereas "Schwere" in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness, although it can stand in for "Schwerkraft."<br />
<br />
So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain and gravity in the last line ought to be cause enough for speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging down those who try to fly away.<br />
<br />
But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between the standing &#151; or striving? &#151; man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures and achieves some form of liberation from heaviness, seriousness.<br />
<br />
And, of course, after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain shower, what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm but a rainbow?<br />
<br />
==Jules Siegel Speculates==<br />
Jules was Pynchon's roommate at Cornell and they stayed in touch for some years after graduating. In 1977, Jules wrote an article for Playboy magazine, "Who is Thomas Pynchon ... and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?". [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson|More here...]]<br />
<br />
The following are Jules Siegel's speculations, with input from Sean Klein:<br />
<br />
At 01:17 PM 05/21/97 PDT, wrote: <nowiki>[snip material about clarity, etc.]</nowiki><br />
<br />
I think that Pynchon is at his most superior when he's writing clearly. Someone said earlier that his writing is actually often quite clear, but his plots are difficult. I think that's because he doesn't have plots in the conventional sense. It's one of the more appealing qualities of his writing. You don't have to begin ''Gravity's Rainbow'' at the beginning. There is no beginning. It does open with a specific scene, but the book's organization is topological rather than logical. It describes a space and its contents, which relate to each other the way furniture and decorations in a room relate to the room and to each other. There is some sense of chronological time, but it is not very important in the novel's structure, which takes you through an exploration of a multi-dimensional map.<br />
<br />
The space described by this map is ''Gravity's Rainbow'' &#151; the parabola of the rocket vs the arc of the rainbow, but also the whole range of life as seen in the most primitive form &#151; just shit rearranging itself in new forms through eternity. I think that's the reason for so much fecal imagery.<br />
<br />
When I first started corresponding with Andrew Dinn, I wrote:<br />
<br />
:"I wonder if anyone has commented on what it means: we are Gravity's Rainbow. You know &#151; the spectrum is a manifestation of light energy. So Gravity's Rainbow would be the spectrum of gravity &#151; all that has mass, I guess. But I don't really think it applies, because gravity isn't energy; it's an effect of the shape of space, supposedly. I think that gravity's really just another manifestation of what we call sexual attraction, love, that which brings one to join with another."<br />
<br />
Andrew replied:<br />
<br />
:"Bravo Jules, but you should be writing this to the list. Others have played with that idea but usually without communicating what lies behind it so succinctly and cogently."<br />
<br />
This is how I got involved in all this to begin with. Thanks a lot, Andrew. But let us continue. I wrote that on the basis of skimming the book in 1974. In the past few weeks I've been looking through it more carefully. I think my initial reaction was correct.<br />
<br />
Gravity's Rainbow is the Periodic Table of the Elements acted out by cartoon puppets. Think of a school play with kids in colored costumes being the different colors of the spectrum &#151; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet &#151; and acting out little skits with songs symbolizing the nature of each color. Now extend the metaphor to the Elements, only use weirdos to play them. They are kind of crawling around in the muck bopping each other like the Three Stooges. They rise up in spirit and become beautiful and glowing and then they sink back into the muck again &#151; or the Rocket sinks them again. Or They contrive to keep them down.<br />
<br />
These are preliminary thoughts. My main point is that the book is about the leap from shit through flesh to spirit and that this process is Gravity's Rainbow. The process is not described as a linear plot, but as eruptions along a continuum. The continuum is not any place in particular but the stuff of the book itself. If you look through the book, you'll find specific references to gravity as a manifestation of the life force and the planet as a living organism.<br />
<br />
With a book of this magnitude with so many subjects and so many mystical and mathematical allusions, *any* number can be made to seem a significant number.<br />
<br />
This is very true and is the basis of most mystical numerological confabulation.<br />
<br />
I think it's helpful to look at mathematical representations of feedback, the way a rocket homes in on a target.<br />
<br />
When you look at astrological signs as descriptions of states of energy this becomes even more interesting:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align:center"><br />
'''Aries''' Seeds &#151; Springing forward &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Taurus''' Planting &#151; Ploughing forward &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Gemini''' Leaves and Flowers &#151; Opening outward &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Cancer''' Nursing breasts &#151; Condensing tides &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Leo''' Fruits &#151; Blazing summer &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Virgo''' Harvest &#151; Cooling off &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Libra''' Weighing &#151; Diffusion &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Scorpio''' Storage &#151; Privacy &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Sagittarius''' Hunting &#151; Arrow flight &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Capricorn''' Forage &#151; Nimble &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Aquarius''' Lightning &#151; Crackling &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Pisces''' Rain &#151; Falling &#151; Water<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
Astrology is an agricultural almanac. Each sign represents a state of energy. Fire, Earth, Air and Water are actually almost exactly equivalent to Plasma, Solid, Gas, and Liquid. In the system above, you can see that a growth cycle is being described, beginning with the enthusiastic spurt of the germinating seed, which then turns to the plodding cow, then to the opening of the buds of the leaves and so on.<br />
<br />
Each state of energy is opposite to (or a correction of) the previous one, but in a different direction. Now remove the astrological symbolism and simply view the transformations of energy as the underlying state of the cosmos. Whether you then translate this as Tarot or Astrology or I-Ching or whatever, you are always dealing with the same process of self correcting feedback.<br />
<br />
In other words, Gravity's Rainbow.<br />
<br />
&copy; Jules Siegel<br />
<br />
<br />
==Random and semi-random associations==<br />
<br />
In Genesis 9:13-15, the first rainbow is a token of God's covenant not to destroy humanity again &#151; or not with a flood, anyway. As an old spiritual has it: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time."<br><br />
God's covenant was even stronger, in Genesis:<br><br />
Genesis 9: 16 "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
Genesis 9: 17 "And God said unto Noah, This ''is'' the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
<br />
Gravity is also what gives objects massed weight. Cf. a major evil character taking on mass in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']p.743<br />
<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_Title&diff=3514Gravity's Rainbow Title2012-07-10T21:16:25Z<p>Benvolio: /* Andrew Dinn Speculates */</p>
<hr />
<div>==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
<br />
According to Gerald Howard, who was an assistant editor at Viking Penguin during GR's editorial process, Pynchon submitted the manuscript without a title, "which at some point acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures... Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection." ''See'' "Pynchon from A to V", Bookforum, Summer 2005. [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html]<br />
<br />
[[image:Mindless-Pleasures.jpg|thumb|200px|Artwork for Mindless Pleasures?|right]]<br />
Many paperback houses got the manuscript under the title Mindless Pleasures to read for paperback consideration. That title picks up a concept articulated in Pynchon's first published short story, ''The Small Rain''. (how?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the title within GR==<br />
<br />
The word "gravity" appears 28 times in the novel, while "rainbow" appears 16 times. <br />
<br />
The primary interpretation, that the title refers to the shape of the V-2 rocket's trajectory, a rainbow-shaped parabola caused by gravity, derives most explicitly from page 209:<br />
<br />
:"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice &#151; guessed and refused to believe &#151; that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow, and they its children...."<br />
<br />
The title could also be interpreted through page 590:<br />
<br />
:"To find that Gravity [...] is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody...having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side [...]" 590<br />
<br />
There, "gravity's rainbow" could be interpreted to mean the manifold, infinitely complex layers of strata that form the Earth.<br />
<br />
Gravity's rainbow could also be the many colors synthesized from coal-tar:<br />
<br />
:"We passed over the coal-tars. A thousand different molecules waited in the preterite dung. [...] This is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, leaping to Earth's light from its grave miles and aeons below." 166<br />
<br />
<br />
==Andrew Dinn Speculates==<br />
The following is one-time [http://waste.org/pynchon-l/ Pynchon List] member Andrew Dinn's speculation:<br />
<br />
Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the other day, I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem called "Schwerkraft ("Gravity") written in October 1924. I believe it is very likely to be be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
:Mitte, wie du aus allen<br /><br />
:dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich<br /><br />
:wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.<br />
<br />
:Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst<br /><br />
:Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.<br />
<br />
:Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,<br /><br />
:wie aus lagernder Wolke,<br /><br />
:reichlicher Regen der Schwere.<br />
<br />
The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael Hamburger and goes as follows:<br />
<br />
:Centre, how from them all <br />
:you draw yourself, even from flying creatures <br />
:win back yourself, centre, the strongest.<br />
<br />
:The standing man<br /><br />
:as drink through thirst<br /><br />
:gravity rushes through him.<br />
<br />
:But from the sleeper falls,<br /><br />
:as from a cloud at rest,<br /><br />
:gravity's plentiful rain.<br />
<br />
As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes, "Schwerkraft" is definitively "gravity," the attractive force, whereas "Schwere" in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness, although it can stand in for "Schwerkraft."<br />
<br />
So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain and gravity in the last line ought to be cause enough for speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging down those who try to fly away.<br />
<br />
But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between the standing &#151; or striving? &#151; man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures and achieves some form of liberation from heaviness, seriousness.<br />
<br />
And, of course, after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain shower, what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm but a rainbow?<br />
<br />
==Jules Siegel Speculates==<br />
Jules was Pynchon's roommate at Cornell and they stayed in touch for some years after graduating. In 1977, Jules wrote an article for Playboy magazine, "Who is Thomas Pynchon ... and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?". [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson|More here...]]<br />
<br />
The following are Jules Siegel's speculations, with input from Sean Klein:<br />
<br />
At 01:17 PM 05/21/97 PDT, wrote: <nowiki>[snip material about clarity, etc.]</nowiki><br />
<br />
I think that Pynchon is at his most superior when he's writing clearly. Someone said earlier that his writing is actually often quite clear, but his plots are difficult. I think that's because he doesn't have plots in the conventional sense. It's one of the more appealing qualities of his writing. You don't have to begin ''Gravity's Rainbow'' at the beginning. There is no beginning. It does open with a specific scene, but the book's organization is topological rather than logical. It describes a space and its contents, which relate to each other the way furniture and decorations in a room relate to the room and to each other. There is some sense of chronological time, but it is not very important in the novel's structure, which takes you through an exploration of a multi-dimensional map.<br />
<br />
The space described by this map is ''Gravity's Rainbow'' &#151; the parabola of the rocket vs the arc of the rainbow, but also the whole range of life as seen in the most primitive form &#151; just shit rearranging itself in new forms through eternity. I think that's the reason for so much fecal imagery.<br />
<br />
When I first started corresponding with Andrew Dinn, I wrote:<br />
<br />
:"I wonder if anyone has commented on what it means: we are Gravity's Rainbow. You know &#151; the spectrum is a manifestation of light energy. So Gravity's Rainbow would be the spectrum of gravity &#151; all that has mass, I guess. But I don't really think it applies, because gravity isn't energy; it's an effect of the shape of space, supposedly. I think that gravity's really just another manifestation of what we call sexual attraction, love, that which brings one to join with another."<br />
<br />
Andrew replied:<br />
<br />
:"Bravo Jules, but you should be writing this to the list. Others have played with that idea but usually without communicating what lies behind it so succinctly and cogently."<br />
<br />
This is how I got involved in all this to begin with. Thanks a lot, Andrew. But let us continue. I wrote that on the basis of skimming the book in 1974. In the past few weeks I've been looking through it more carefully. I think my initial reaction was correct.<br />
<br />
Gravity's Rainbow is the Periodic Table of the Elements acted out by cartoon puppets. Think of a school play with kids in colored costumes being the different colors of the spectrum &#151; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet &#151; and acting out little skits with songs symbolizing the nature of each color. Now extend the metaphor to the Elements, only use weirdos to play them. They are kind of crawling around in the muck bopping each other like the Three Stooges. They rise up in spirit and become beautiful and glowing and then they sink back into the muck again &#151; or the Rocket sinks them again. Or They contrive to keep them down.<br />
<br />
These are preliminary thoughts. My main point is that the book is about the leap from shit through flesh to spirit and that this process is Gravity's Rainbow. The process is not described as a linear plot, but as eruptions along a continuum. The continuum is not any place in particular but the stuff of the book itself. If you look through the book, you'll find specific references to gravity as a manifestation of the life force and the planet as a living organism.<br />
<br />
With a book of this magnitude with so many subjects and so many mystical and mathematical allusions, *any* number can be made to seem a significant number.<br />
<br />
This is very true and is the basis of most mystical numerological confabulation.<br />
<br />
I think it's helpful to look at mathematical representations of feedback, the way a rocket homes in on a target.<br />
<br />
When you look at astrological signs as descriptions of states of energy this becomes even more interesting:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align:center"><br />
'''Aries''' Seeds &#151; Springing forward &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Taurus''' Planting &#151; Ploughing forward &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Gemini''' Leaves and Flowers &#151; Opening outward &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Cancer''' Nursing breasts &#151; Condensing tides &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Leo''' Fruits &#151; Blazing summer &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Virgo''' Harvest &#151; Cooling off &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Libra''' Weighing &#151; Diffusion &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Scorpio''' Storage &#151; Privacy &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Sagittarius''' Hunting &#151; Arrow flight &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Capricorn''' Forage &#151; Nimble &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Aquarius''' Lightning &#151; Crackling &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Pisces''' Rain &#151; Falling &#151; Water<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
Astrology is an agricultural almanac. Each sign represents a state of energy. Fire, Earth, Air and Water are actually almost exactly equivalent to Plasma, Solid, Gas, and Liquid. In the system above, you can see that a growth cycle is being described, beginning with the enthusiastic spurt of the germinating seed, which then turns to the plodding cow, then to the opening of the buds of the leaves and so on.<br />
<br />
Each state of energy is opposite to (or a correction of) the previous one, but in a different direction. Now remove the astrological symbolism and simply view the transformations of energy as the underlying state of the cosmos. Whether you then translate this as Tarot or Astrology or I-Ching or whatever, you are always dealing with the same process of self correcting feedback.<br />
<br />
In other words, Gravity's Rainbow.<br />
<br />
&copy; Jules Siegel<br />
<br />
<br />
==Random and semi-random associations==<br />
<br />
In Genesis 9:13-15, the first rainbow is a token of God's covenant not to destroy humanity again &#151; or not with a flood, anyway. As an old spiritual has it: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time."<br><br />
God's covenant was even stronger, in Genesis:<br><br />
Genesis 9: 16 "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
Genesis 9: 17 "And God said unto Noah, This ''is'' the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
<br />
One interpretation that "gravity's rainbow" is the parabola described by the rocket's trajectory from launch to hit, as the projectile gradually loses its battle with gravity and is finally pulled back to earth following Brennschluss. This interpretation is reinforced by the original hard-cover editions of Gravity's Rainbow, which have a parabola intaglioed into the front cover.<br />
<br />
Gravity is also what gives objects massed weight. Cf. a major evil character taking on mass in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']p.743<br />
<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_Title&diff=3513Gravity's Rainbow Title2012-07-10T21:01:40Z<p>Benvolio: </p>
<hr />
<div>==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
<br />
According to Gerald Howard, who was an assistant editor at Viking Penguin during GR's editorial process, Pynchon submitted the manuscript without a title, "which at some point acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures... Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection." ''See'' "Pynchon from A to V", Bookforum, Summer 2005. [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html]<br />
<br />
[[image:Mindless-Pleasures.jpg|thumb|200px|Artwork for Mindless Pleasures?|right]]<br />
Many paperback houses got the manuscript under the title Mindless Pleasures to read for paperback consideration. That title picks up a concept articulated in Pynchon's first published short story, ''The Small Rain''. (how?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the title within GR==<br />
<br />
The word "gravity" appears 28 times in the novel, while "rainbow" appears 16 times. <br />
<br />
The primary interpretation, that the title refers to the shape of the V-2 rocket's trajectory, a rainbow-shaped parabola caused by gravity, derives most explicitly from page 209:<br />
<br />
:"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice &#151; guessed and refused to believe &#151; that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow, and they its children...."<br />
<br />
The title could also be interpreted through page 590:<br />
<br />
:"To find that Gravity [...] is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody...having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side [...]" 590<br />
<br />
There, "gravity's rainbow" could be interpreted to mean the manifold, infinitely complex layers of strata that form the Earth.<br />
<br />
Gravity's rainbow could also be the many colors synthesized from coal-tar:<br />
<br />
:"We passed over the coal-tars. A thousand different molecules waited in the preterite dung. [...] This is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, leaping to Earth's light from its grave miles and aeons below." 166<br />
<br />
<br />
==Andrew Dinn Speculates==<br />
The following is one-time [http://waste.org/pynchon-l/ Pynchon List] member Andrew Dinn's speculation:<br />
<br />
Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the other day, I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem called "Schwerkraft ("Gravity") written in October 1924. I believe it is very likely to be be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
:Mitte, wie du aus allen<br /><br />
:dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich<br /><br />
:wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.<br />
<br />
:Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst<br /><br />
:Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.<br />
<br />
:Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,<br /><br />
:wie aus lagernder Wolke,<br /><br />
:reichlicher Regen der Schwere.<br />
<br />
The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael Hamburger and goes as follows:<br />
<br />
:Centre, how from them all :you draw yourself, even from flying creatures :win back yourself, centre, the strongest.<br />
<br />
:The standing man<br /><br />
:as drink through thirst<br /><br />
:gravity rushes through him.<br />
<br />
:But from the sleeper falls,<br /><br />
:as from a cloud at rest,<br /><br />
:gravity's plentiful rain.<br />
<br />
As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes, "Schwerkraft" is definitively "gravity," the attractive force, whereas "Schwere" in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness, although it can stand in for "Schwerkraft."<br />
<br />
So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain and gravity in the last line ought to be cause enough for speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging down those who try to fly away.<br />
<br />
But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between the standing &#151; or striving? &#151; man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures and achieves some form of liberation from heaviness, seriousness.<br />
<br />
And, of course, after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain shower, what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm but a rainbow?<br />
<br />
==Jules Siegel Speculates==<br />
Jules was Pynchon's roommate at Cornell and they stayed in touch for some years after graduating. In 1977, Jules wrote an article for Playboy magazine, "Who is Thomas Pynchon ... and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?". [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson|More here...]]<br />
<br />
The following are Jules Siegel's speculations, with input from Sean Klein:<br />
<br />
At 01:17 PM 05/21/97 PDT, wrote: <nowiki>[snip material about clarity, etc.]</nowiki><br />
<br />
I think that Pynchon is at his most superior when he's writing clearly. Someone said earlier that his writing is actually often quite clear, but his plots are difficult. I think that's because he doesn't have plots in the conventional sense. It's one of the more appealing qualities of his writing. You don't have to begin ''Gravity's Rainbow'' at the beginning. There is no beginning. It does open with a specific scene, but the book's organization is topological rather than logical. It describes a space and its contents, which relate to each other the way furniture and decorations in a room relate to the room and to each other. There is some sense of chronological time, but it is not very important in the novel's structure, which takes you through an exploration of a multi-dimensional map.<br />
<br />
The space described by this map is ''Gravity's Rainbow'' &#151; the parabola of the rocket vs the arc of the rainbow, but also the whole range of life as seen in the most primitive form &#151; just shit rearranging itself in new forms through eternity. I think that's the reason for so much fecal imagery.<br />
<br />
When I first started corresponding with Andrew Dinn, I wrote:<br />
<br />
:"I wonder if anyone has commented on what it means: we are Gravity's Rainbow. You know &#151; the spectrum is a manifestation of light energy. So Gravity's Rainbow would be the spectrum of gravity &#151; all that has mass, I guess. But I don't really think it applies, because gravity isn't energy; it's an effect of the shape of space, supposedly. I think that gravity's really just another manifestation of what we call sexual attraction, love, that which brings one to join with another."<br />
<br />
Andrew replied:<br />
<br />
:"Bravo Jules, but you should be writing this to the list. Others have played with that idea but usually without communicating what lies behind it so succinctly and cogently."<br />
<br />
This is how I got involved in all this to begin with. Thanks a lot, Andrew. But let us continue. I wrote that on the basis of skimming the book in 1974. In the past few weeks I've been looking through it more carefully. I think my initial reaction was correct.<br />
<br />
Gravity's Rainbow is the Periodic Table of the Elements acted out by cartoon puppets. Think of a school play with kids in colored costumes being the different colors of the spectrum &#151; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet &#151; and acting out little skits with songs symbolizing the nature of each color. Now extend the metaphor to the Elements, only use weirdos to play them. They are kind of crawling around in the muck bopping each other like the Three Stooges. They rise up in spirit and become beautiful and glowing and then they sink back into the muck again &#151; or the Rocket sinks them again. Or They contrive to keep them down.<br />
<br />
These are preliminary thoughts. My main point is that the book is about the leap from shit through flesh to spirit and that this process is Gravity's Rainbow. The process is not described as a linear plot, but as eruptions along a continuum. The continuum is not any place in particular but the stuff of the book itself. If you look through the book, you'll find specific references to gravity as a manifestation of the life force and the planet as a living organism.<br />
<br />
With a book of this magnitude with so many subjects and so many mystical and mathematical allusions, *any* number can be made to seem a significant number.<br />
<br />
This is very true and is the basis of most mystical numerological confabulation.<br />
<br />
I think it's helpful to look at mathematical representations of feedback, the way a rocket homes in on a target.<br />
<br />
When you look at astrological signs as descriptions of states of energy this becomes even more interesting:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align:center"><br />
'''Aries''' Seeds &#151; Springing forward &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Taurus''' Planting &#151; Ploughing forward &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Gemini''' Leaves and Flowers &#151; Opening outward &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Cancer''' Nursing breasts &#151; Condensing tides &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Leo''' Fruits &#151; Blazing summer &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Virgo''' Harvest &#151; Cooling off &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Libra''' Weighing &#151; Diffusion &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Scorpio''' Storage &#151; Privacy &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Sagittarius''' Hunting &#151; Arrow flight &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Capricorn''' Forage &#151; Nimble &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Aquarius''' Lightning &#151; Crackling &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Pisces''' Rain &#151; Falling &#151; Water<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
Astrology is an agricultural almanac. Each sign represents a state of energy. Fire, Earth, Air and Water are actually almost exactly equivalent to Plasma, Solid, Gas, and Liquid. In the system above, you can see that a growth cycle is being described, beginning with the enthusiastic spurt of the germinating seed, which then turns to the plodding cow, then to the opening of the buds of the leaves and so on.<br />
<br />
Each state of energy is opposite to (or a correction of) the previous one, but in a different direction. Now remove the astrological symbolism and simply view the transformations of energy as the underlying state of the cosmos. Whether you then translate this as Tarot or Astrology or I-Ching or whatever, you are always dealing with the same process of self correcting feedback.<br />
<br />
In other words, Gravity's Rainbow.<br />
<br />
&copy; Jules Siegel<br />
<br />
<br />
==Random and semi-random associations==<br />
<br />
In Genesis 9:13-15, the first rainbow is a token of God's covenant not to destroy humanity again &#151; or not with a flood, anyway. As an old spiritual has it: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time."<br><br />
God's covenant was even stronger, in Genesis:<br><br />
Genesis 9: 16 "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
Genesis 9: 17 "And God said unto Noah, This ''is'' the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
<br />
One interpretation that "gravity's rainbow" is the parabola described by the rocket's trajectory from launch to hit, as the projectile gradually loses its battle with gravity and is finally pulled back to earth following Brennschluss. This interpretation is reinforced by the original hard-cover editions of Gravity's Rainbow, which have a parabola intaglioed into the front cover.<br />
<br />
Gravity is also what gives objects massed weight. Cf. a major evil character taking on mass in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']p.743<br />
<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity%27s_Rainbow_Title&diff=3512Gravity's Rainbow Title2012-07-10T20:45:36Z<p>Benvolio: </p>
<hr />
<div>==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
<br />
According to Gerald Howard, who was an assistant editor at Viking Penguin during GR's editorial process, Pynchon submitted the manuscript without a title, "which at some point acquired the working title Mindless Pleasures... Although Mindless Pleasures was used in Viking's original announcement to the press, no one at all seemed pleased with it (it comes from a phrase that occurs twice in the book), and Kennebeck floated, with the air of semidesperation one feels in these situations, such duds as Powers That Be, Angel of the Preterite, Control, and Slothrop Dodging (well, you try it). I'm guessing that Pynchon came up with Gravity's Rainbow, which was perfection." ''See'' "Pynchon from A to V", Bookforum, Summer 2005. [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
__FORCETOC__<br />
==Mindless Pleasures==<br />
[[image:Mindless-Pleasures.jpg|thumb|200px|Mindless Pleasures|right]]<br />
Not universally known is the working title that the manuscript circulated with in publishing houses before it was changed: ''Mindless Pleasures''. Many paperback houses got the manuscript under that title to read for paperback consideration. At least one person claims to still have it that way. That title picks up a concept articulated in Pynchon's first published short story, ''The Small Rain''.<br />
<br />
Why isn't it called "Mindless Pleasures" or one of the myriad other working titles (none of which I can remember, but they're hilarious and I just looked for an hour and can't for the life of me remember where I saw them all) it possessed prior to its settling on that perfect title. One interpretation that "gravity's rainbow" is the parabola described by the rocket's trajectory from launch to hit, as the projectile gradually loses its battle with gravity and is finally pulled back to earth following Brennschluss. This interpretation is reinforced by the original hard-cover editions of Gravity's Rainbow, which have a parabola intaglioed into the front cover. But! There are, as usual, many ways to skin this cat, to wit:<br />
<br />
Gravity's rainbow could also be the many colors synthesized from coal-tar:<br />
<br />
:"To find that Gravity [...] is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody...having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side [...]" 590<br />
<br />
:"We passed over the coal-tars. A thousand different molecules waited in the preterite dung. [...] This is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, leaping to Earth's light from its grave miles and aeons below." 166<br />
<br />
<br />
==Textual associations==<br />
<br />
In Genesis 9:13-15, the first rainbow is a token of God's covenant not to destroy humanity again &#151; or not with a flood, anyway. As an old spiritual has it: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time."<br><br />
God's covenant was even stronger, in Genesis:<br><br />
Genesis 9: 16 "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
Genesis 9: 17 "And God said unto Noah, This ''is'' the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that ''is'' upon the earth."<br><br />
<br />
==Within GR==<br />
<br />
One reading of the title is that "gravity's rainbow" is the parabola of a ballistic missile's flight, halted on the final page a "last unmeasurable gap... the last delta-t" over our heads: fiery destruction held in abeyance. For now.<br />
<br />
The connection between the parabolic flight path of the Rocket and a rainbow is made explicit in an important discussion of the rocket's trajectory (p. 209):<br />
<br />
:"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice &#151; guessed and refused to believe &#151; that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow, and they its children...."<br />
<br />
Gravity is also what gives objects massed weight. Cf. a major evil character taking on mass in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']p.743<br />
<br />
==Andrew Dinn Speculates==<br />
The following is one-time [http://waste.org/pynchon-l/ Pynchon List] member Andrew Dinn's speculation:<br />
<br />
Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the other day, I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem called "Schwerkraft ("Gravity") written in October 1924. I believe it is very likely to be be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
:Mitte, wie du aus allen<br /><br />
:dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich<br /><br />
:wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.<br />
<br />
:Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst<br /><br />
:Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.<br />
<br />
:Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,<br /><br />
:wie aus lagernder Wolke,<br /><br />
:reichlicher Regen der Schwere.<br />
<br />
The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael Hamburger and goes as follows:<br />
<br />
:Centre, how from them all :you draw yourself, even from flying creatures :win back yourself, centre, the strongest.<br />
<br />
:The standing man<br /><br />
:as drink through thirst<br /><br />
:gravity rushes through him.<br />
<br />
:But from the sleeper falls,<br /><br />
:as from a cloud at rest,<br /><br />
:gravity's plentiful rain.<br />
<br />
As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes, "Schwerkraft" is definitively "gravity," the attractive force, whereas "Schwere" in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness, although it can stand in for "Schwerkraft."<br />
<br />
So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain and gravity in the last line ought to be cause enough for speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging down those who try to fly away.<br />
<br />
But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between the standing &#151; or striving? &#151; man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures and achieves some form of liberation from heaviness, seriousness.<br />
<br />
And, of course, after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain shower, what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm but a rainbow?<br />
<br />
==Jules Siegel Speculates==<br />
Jules was Pynchon's roommate at Cornell and they stayed in touch for some years after graduating. In 1977, Jules wrote an article for Playboy magazine, "Who is Thomas Pynchon ... and Why Did He Take Off with My Wife?". [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson|More here...]]<br />
<br />
The following are Jules Siegel's speculations, with input from Sean Klein:<br />
<br />
At 01:17 PM 05/21/97 PDT, wrote: <nowiki>[snip material about clarity, etc.]</nowiki><br />
<br />
I think that Pynchon is at his most superior when he's writing clearly. Someone said earlier that his writing is actually often quite clear, but his plots are difficult. I think that's because he doesn't have plots in the conventional sense. It's one of the more appealing qualities of his writing. You don't have to begin ''Gravity's Rainbow'' at the beginning. There is no beginning. It does open with a specific scene, but the book's organization is topological rather than logical. It describes a space and its contents, which relate to each other the way furniture and decorations in a room relate to the room and to each other. There is some sense of chronological time, but it is not very important in the novel's structure, which takes you through an exploration of a multi-dimensional map.<br />
<br />
The space described by this map is ''Gravity's Rainbow'' &#151; the parabola of the rocket vs the arc of the rainbow, but also the whole range of life as seen in the most primitive form &#151; just shit rearranging itself in new forms through eternity. I think that's the reason for so much fecal imagery.<br />
<br />
When I first started corresponding with Andrew Dinn, I wrote:<br />
<br />
:"I wonder if anyone has commented on what it means: we are Gravity's Rainbow. You know &#151; the spectrum is a manifestation of light energy. So Gravity's Rainbow would be the spectrum of gravity &#151; all that has mass, I guess. But I don't really think it applies, because gravity isn't energy; it's an effect of the shape of space, supposedly. I think that gravity's really just another manifestation of what we call sexual attraction, love, that which brings one to join with another."<br />
<br />
Andrew replied:<br />
<br />
:"Bravo Jules, but you should be writing this to the list. Others have played with that idea but usually without communicating what lies behind it so succinctly and cogently."<br />
<br />
This is how I got involved in all this to begin with. Thanks a lot, Andrew. But let us continue. I wrote that on the basis of skimming the book in 1974. In the past few weeks I've been looking through it more carefully. I think my initial reaction was correct.<br />
<br />
Gravity's Rainbow is the Periodic Table of the Elements acted out by cartoon puppets. Think of a school play with kids in colored costumes being the different colors of the spectrum &#151; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet &#151; and acting out little skits with songs symbolizing the nature of each color. Now extend the metaphor to the Elements, only use weirdos to play them. They are kind of crawling around in the muck bopping each other like the Three Stooges. They rise up in spirit and become beautiful and glowing and then they sink back into the muck again &#151; or the Rocket sinks them again. Or They contrive to keep them down.<br />
<br />
These are preliminary thoughts. My main point is that the book is about the leap from shit through flesh to spirit and that this process is Gravity's Rainbow. The process is not described as a linear plot, but as eruptions along a continuum. The continuum is not any place in particular but the stuff of the book itself. If you look through the book, you'll find specific references to gravity as a manifestation of the life force and the planet as a living organism.<br />
<br />
With a book of this magnitude with so many subjects and so many mystical and mathematical allusions, *any* number can be made to seem a significant number.<br />
<br />
This is very true and is the basis of most mystical numerological confabulation.<br />
<br />
I think it's helpful to look at mathematical representations of feedback, the way a rocket homes in on a target.<br />
<br />
When you look at astrological signs as descriptions of states of energy this becomes even more interesting:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align:center"><br />
'''Aries''' Seeds &#151; Springing forward &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Taurus''' Planting &#151; Ploughing forward &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Gemini''' Leaves and Flowers &#151; Opening outward &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Cancer''' Nursing breasts &#151; Condensing tides &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Leo''' Fruits &#151; Blazing summer &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Virgo''' Harvest &#151; Cooling off &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Libra''' Weighing &#151; Diffusion &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Scorpio''' Storage &#151; Privacy &#151; Water<br />
<br />
'''Sagittarius''' Hunting &#151; Arrow flight &#151; Fire<br />
<br />
'''Capricorn''' Forage &#151; Nimble &#151; Earth<br />
<br />
'''Aquarius''' Lightning &#151; Crackling &#151; Air<br />
<br />
'''Pisces''' Rain &#151; Falling &#151; Water<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
Astrology is an agricultural almanac. Each sign represents a state of energy. Fire, Earth, Air and Water are actually almost exactly equivalent to Plasma, Solid, Gas, and Liquid. In the system above, you can see that a growth cycle is being described, beginning with the enthusiastic spurt of the germinating seed, which then turns to the plodding cow, then to the opening of the buds of the leaves and so on.<br />
<br />
Each state of energy is opposite to (or a correction of) the previous one, but in a different direction. Now remove the astrological symbolism and simply view the transformations of energy as the underlying state of the cosmos. Whether you then translate this as Tarot or Astrology or I-Ching or whatever, you are always dealing with the same process of self correcting feedback.<br />
<br />
In other words, Gravity's Rainbow.<br />
<br />
&copy; Jules Siegel<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Patterns_in_Words_and_Letters&diff=3511Patterns in Words and Letters2012-07-10T20:32:18Z<p>Benvolio: Created page with "This content moved from various points in the Page-by-Page because it fits better in its own topic. 3.01 '''A'''<br> The shape of the first letter recalls both the eye of th..."</p>
<hr />
<div>This content moved from various points in the Page-by-Page because it fits better in its own topic. <br />
<br />
3.01 '''A'''<br><br />
The shape of the first letter recalls both the eye of the pyramid and the rocket standing on its fins. A is also a sort of reverse V - the V-2 was also known as the A-4. Finally compare the first and last typographical characters in the book: '''A''' and '''--'''. If the first is the rocket waiting to fly, the last is the flattened impact site with nothing left standing. <br />
<br />
3.01 '''A screaming comes across the sky.'''<br><br />
Note the internal alliteration of K and S, and the double s in "across", the first of many.</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S&diff=3510S2012-07-10T20:30:57Z<p>Benvolio: </p>
<hr />
<div><div id="sachsa">'''Sachsa, Peter'''</div><br />
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; [[Peter Sachsa|Etymological Musings]]<br />
<br />
[[Sado-Masochism|'''SADOMASOCHISM (S/M)''']]<br />
<br />
<div id="basher"></div>'''St. Blaise, Group Capt. "Basher"'''<br /><br />
146; sees angel of death during RAF Lübeck strike, 151; [["Basher" St. Blaise|Etymological Musings]]; See also [[C#church|Church of St. Blasius]]<br />
<br />
'''St. Elmo's fire'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''St. Felix'''<br /><br />
37; "the clock of" in London<br />
<br />
'''St. John's Wood'''<br /><br />
544; an exclusive district in West London, where the Mossmoons live<br />
<br />
'''Saint Pauli'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''St. Veronica's Hospital'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''St.-Just Grossout'''<br /><br />
540; blackman worked for Firm infiltrating Schwarzkommando (aka "Sam Juiced")<br />
<br />
<div id="salitieri">'''Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short'''</div><br />
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 [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1#warpe ''The Crying of Lot 49'']: Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus.<br />
<br />
'''Sandhurst'''<br /><br />
202; a military academy, the British equivalent to West Point in the U.S<br />
<br />
'''Sandoz'''<br /><br />
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;<br />
<br />
'''Sandra'''<br /><br />
685; has "run away from the Kleinburgerstrasse" and staying at Der Platz<br />
<br />
'''Sandra'''<br /><br />
606; acquaintance of Manuela's at Putzi's<br />
<br />
'''Sandys, Duncan'''<br /><br />
Sandys, who was married to Churchill's daughter Diana, 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<br />
<br />
'''Sanktwolke, Edouard'''<br /><br />
385; German: "Saint Cloud"; "veteran automotive jobber" who supplied transportation for von Göll's and Waxwing's "travelling business conference"<br />
<br />
'''Santora'''<br /><br />
744; family in Mingeborough, MA<br />
<br />
'''Sargasso Sea'''<br /><br />
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;<br />
<br />
'''Sargner'''<br /><br />
152; "a civilian attached to the General Staff" who is keyed on by Wimpe at séance<br />
<br />
'''Sarnaki'''<br /><br />
424; target area for A-4, near Blizna, Poland<br />
<br />
'''Sarts'''<br /><br />
340; Central Asian people<br />
<br />
'''Sassoon, Lt. Siegfried Lorraine (1886-1967)'''<br /><br />
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)<br />
<br />
'''sastrugi'''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
'''Saturday Evening Post'''<br /><br />
435; American weekly magazine the covers of which often had Norman Rockwell illustrations<br />
<br />
'''Saville Row'''<br /><br />
526; swank shopping district in London<br />
<br />
'''Scammony, Sir Marcus (aka Angelique)'''<br /><br />
615; drinking with Clive Mossmoon at "their club"<br />
<br />
'''Schacht, Hjalmar (1877-1970)'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Schadenfreude'''<br /><br />
526; German: "joy at another's misfortune"; described but not named, 36; 745<br />
<br />
'''Scheveningen'''<br /><br />
97; coastal town in Holland, just north of The Hague [MAP]; 102; 104; 105; 535<br />
<br />
'''Schicksal'''<br /><br />
416; German: "fate, destiny" (misspelled "Shicksal" in earlier editions)<br />
<br />
'''Schiller, Professor'''<br /><br />
224; Slothrop studying his book on regenerative cooling<br />
<br />
'''Schilling'''<br /><br />
527; "[Närrisch] worked in guidance, he was Schilling's best man"<br />
<br />
'''Schlabone, Gustav'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Schleim, Josef'''<br /><br />
630; "a defector of secondary brilliance, who had once worked for the IG out of Dr. Reithinger's office, VOWI"; 631;<br />
<br />
'''Schlepzig, Max'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Schmeil'''<br /><br />
518; engineer at Peenemünde<br />
<br />
'''Schmitz, Carl'''<br /><br />
565; "'Didn't Schmitz of the IG sit on Siemens's board of directors?'" 565;<br />
<br />
'''Schnorp'''<br /><br />
332-36; Geli's friend who gives Slothrop balloon ride to Berlin<br />
<br />
'''Schokoladestrasse'''<br /><br />
646; German: "Chocolate Street"; in Happyville<br />
<br />
'''Schraub'''<br /><br />
568; German: "screw"; "the shoemaker" whose played Plechazunga "for the past 30 years"<br />
<br />
'''Schumann of Düsseldorf'''<br /><br />
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"<br />
<br />
'''Schußstelle 3'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Schwindel operative'''<br /><br />
286;<br />
<br />
'''''schwarz'''''<br /><br />
German: literally 'black', but also 'secret' and/or 'illicit' as in 'Secret Service' or 'black market'; see ''Schwarzgerät'' and ''Schwarzkommando'' below<br />
<br />
<div id="schwartzgerat">'''''Schwarzgerät'''''</div><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''''Schwarzkommando'''''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Schweitar, Mario'''<br /><br />
260, 268; troubleshooter around the Cartel; worked for Sandoz<br />
<br />
'''Schwindel'''<br /><br />
286; German: "fraud" "trick", also "dizziness"; "code name for Hugo Stinnes"<br />
<br />
[[Science, Physics, Math &c.|'''SCIENCE, PHYSICS, MATH &c.''']]<br /><br />
See also [[D#delta-t|delta-t]]; [[P#poisson|Poisson Distribution]]<br />
<br />
'''screen door salesman'''<br /><br />
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!"<br />
<br />
'''scrip'''<br /><br />
105; temporary paper currency issued during emergencies/special circumstances<br />
<br />
'''Scrubs'''<br /><br />
Wormwood Scrubs Prison, in London; "I'll see you two in the Scrubs if it kills me!" 717<br />
<br />
'''Scuffling, Ian'''<br /><br />
256; Pseudonym given to T. Slothrop by Waxwing in Nice; See also Slothrop, Tyrone<br />
<br />
'''Scylla and Charybdis'''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
'''SD'''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
'''séance'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Second Empire'''<br /><br />
The Second Empire (1852-70) of Napoleon III; 675<br />
<br />
'''Section 8'''<br /><br />
114; a category of discharge from the United States military for reason of being mentally unfit for service; 182<br />
<br />
'''Seele'''<br /><br />
654; German: "soul, spirit"; "as the core of the earlier carbon filament was known in Germany"<br />
<br />
[[Self-reference in Gravity's Rainbow|'''SELF-REFERENCE''']]<br />
<br />
'''Semirechie'''<br /><br />
611; province in Kazakhstan, in the Soviet Union<br />
<br />
'''Semyavin'''<br /><br />
258; local Waxwing rep in Zürich?; 261<br />
<br />
'''1 September'''<br /><br />
479; On September 1, 1939, the German Army invaded Poland, thus "initiating" WWII<br />
<br />
[[Serpents/Snakes References|'''SERPENT/SNAKE''']]<br /><br />
See also [[#snake|Snake]]<br />
<br />
'''SEZ WHO'''<br /><br />
270; Slothropian Episodic Zone, Weekly Historical Observations<br />
<br />
'''Seven Rivers country'''<br /><br />
338; where Tchitcherine was stationed, "in a remote 'bear's corner'"<br />
<br />
'''sfacim-a'''<br /><br />
299; sfacim: from "sfaciàre" = to dismantle'''<br /><br />
Tony Assenza graciously supplied the following regarding "sfacim":'''<br /><br />
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."<br />
<br />
''''s Gravenhage'''<br /><br />
209; aka The Hague;<br />
<br />
'''shadows'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''SHAEF'''<br /><br />
17; Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force; 74; 76; 121; 210; 244; 287<br />
<br />
'''Shatsk'''<br /><br />
352; nose-fetishist in Weird Letter Assignments; Shatsk is a town in the Volynskaja oblast [political subdivision], in the Ukraine.<br />
<br />
'''Shays'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Shearer, Norma (1900-83)'''<br /><br />
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."<br />
<br />
'''Sheila'''<br /><br />
449; Steve's (GE employee on the Toiletship) fiancée<br />
<br />
'''Shekhinah'''<br /><br />
479: Hebrew: "(female) neighbor"<br />
<br />
'''Shell Mex House'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Shell Oil'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Shetzline'''<br /><br />
389; "classic study" of the time-modulation properties of Oneirine<br />
<br />
'''Shirley'''<br /><br />
599; pretty girl driving the Red Cross Clubmobile that is hijacked<br />
<br />
'''Short, Coolidge ("Hot")'''<br /><br />
591; "of the State Street law firm of Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus, and Short" and a friend of Lyle Bland's<br />
<br />
'''Shufflin' Sam'''<br /><br />
558; "the game of skill where you have to shoot the Negro before he gets back over the fence with the watermelon"<br />
<br />
'''Sidney's Great Yellow Grille'''<br /><br />
65; recalled by Slothrop during Sodium Amytal session<br />
<br />
'''Siege Perilous'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Siemens-Schuchert'''<br /><br />
"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!<br />
<br />
'''Siemens, Wernher (d. 1892)'''<br /><br />
649; German electrical engineer; one of the discoverers of the self-acting dynamo; See also Siemens-Schuchert<br />
<br />
'''Siggi'''<br /><br />
157; old friend of Leni's, known as "the Troll"<br />
<br />
'''Sigmund'''<br /><br />
457; with Greta Erdmann, 474-78; 480<br />
<br />
'''Silberschlag, Frau'''<br /><br />
165; German: "silver shock or blow"; next door neighbor of Leni and Franz Pökler's who delivers Leni's "last message" to Franz<br />
<br />
'''Silvernail, Webley'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Simpson, Mrs. Bessie Wallis Warfield Spencer (1896-1986)'''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
'''Skinner, Burrhus Frederic (1904-1990)'''<br /><br />
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 <br />
<br />
[[image:skippy.gif|106px|left]]'''Skippy'''<br /><br />
644-45; and Mr. Information; [[Skippy|Etymological Musings]]; [http://www.skippy.com/ Skippy's Home Page]<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Broderick'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Constant (d. 1766)'''<br /><br />
26; ancestor of Tyrone; tombstone depicts Hand of God coming out of a cloud<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Mrs. Elizabeth'''<br /><br />
27; wife of Isaiah<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Frederick (d. 1933)'''<br /><br />
27; Tyrone's grandfather<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Hogan'''<br /><br />
29; Tyrone's brother; his Hawaiian shirt, 184, 201; 266; 304; "in love with Chiquita Banana" 678; 682; 744<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Hogan Jr.'''<br /><br />
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)]<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Lt. Isaiah (d. 1812)'''<br /><br />
27; ancestor of Tyrone<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, John'''<br /><br />
555; son of William Slothrop, who helped his dad get the "pig operation" going<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Nalline'''<br /><br />
18; Tyrone's mother; 116; 360; "always happy to see young people getting together" 499; 674; letter to Joe Kennedy, 682-83; 712<br />
<br />
'''SLOTHROP, Lt. Tyrone'''<br /><br />
[[Tyrone Slothrop|Etymological Musings]]; See also Slothrop's girls/stars;<br />
<br />
[[Slothrop's Tarot|'''SLOTHROP'S TAROT''']]<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop's girls/stars'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, Variable'''<br /><br />
27; son of Constant<br />
<br />
'''Slothrop, William'''<br /><br />
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 [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/bookstore.html Available in the HyperArts BookShop - Really! sort of...]; returned to England and died there missing USA, 556; his hymn, 760; [[William Slothrop|The "Real" William Slothrop/Pynchon]]<br />
<br />
'''Slug'''<br /><br />
229; rat who got "fried" the first time he fucked up running the maze<br />
<br />
'''Smaragd, Generaldirektor'''<br /><br />
164-66; (German: "Emerald"); Nazi with IG Farben; "from Leverkusen. An elderly man who used a cane, a notorious spiritualist before the War" 486<br />
<br />
'''smegma'''<br /><br />
"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;<br />
<br />
'''Smile, Murray'''<br /><br />
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 &#151; [[Pynchon and Brian Wilson]]<br />
<br />
'''Smithfield Market'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Smith, Klein, 'n' French'''<br /><br />
518; "Enzian, Andreas, and Christian, coming on like"<br />
<br />
'''Smith, Sir Denis Nayland'''<br /><br />
See Sir Denis Nayland-Smith<br />
<br />
'''Snade, Mrs.'''<br /><br />
169; "wrote in to the Times from Luton Hoo, Bedfrdshire" regarding Gwenhidwy's singing voice<br />
<br />
'''Snake'''<br /><br />
342-43; Tchitcherine's horse (methodically homicidal; unpredictable); Gretel's (Greta Erdmann's) co-star in Weisse Sandwuste von Neumexiko, 482<br />
<br />
'''Snipe and Shaft'''<br /><br />
9; Slothrop's and Tantivy's watering hole; 19; 21<br />
<br />
'''Snodd, Mrs.'''<br /><br />
744; in Mingeborough, MA<br />
<br />
'''snowdrops'''<br /><br />
247; Slang for GI military police in WWII; 601<br />
<br />
'''Snoxall's'''<br /><br />
32; place where seances are held; 33; 37; 238<br />
<br />
'''Sodium Amytal'''<br /><br />
61; truth serum; used on Slothrop; induces "toilet"/Kenosha Kid episode; used on von Göll, 511-14; 746<br />
<br />
<div id="soe"></div>'''S.O.E.'''<br /><br />
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]<br />
<br />
<div id="solange"></div>'''Solange'''<br /><br />
603; German: "as long as" "while" [[Q#quoad|compare etymologies with Mrs. Quoad]]; "masseuse" at Putzi's See also [[P#pokler-l|Pökler, Leni]]<br />
<br />
'''Somerset Club'''<br /><br />
28; exclusive club "no Slothrop ever made it into"<br />
<br />
'''''Son of Frankenstein'''''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
[[Songs/Compositions|'''SONGS/COMPOSITIONS''']]<br />
<br />
'''Sooty'''<br /><br />
174; Jessica's cat; 177<br />
<br />
'''Sound-Shadow'''<br /><br />
"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<br />
<br />
'''sour stuff'''<br /><br />
240; oxygen; the German word for oxygen is "Sauerstoff"<br />
<br />
[[Spanish Translations|'''SPANISH TRANSLATIONS''']]<br />
<br />
'''Spaniols'''<br /><br />
549; Spaniards<br />
<br />
'''Sparks'''<br /><br />
732; aka Ozohande, with Enzian<br />
<br />
'''Sparte IV'''<br /><br />
630; "Slothrop surveillance being assigned to a newly created 'Sparte IV' under Vermittlungsstelle W"<br />
<br />
'''Spectro, Dr. Kevin'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Speed, Harvey'''<br /><br />
270; SEZ WHO Englishman hired by Pointsman to check out Slothrop's sexual conquests; See also Perdoo, Floyd; SEZ WHO<br />
<br />
'''Speer, Albert (d. 1981)'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''SPOG'''<br /><br />
272; Special Projectiles Operations Group of which Operation Backfire is a part; 277; 391; 595; 601<br />
<br />
'''Spontoon, Doctor'''<br /><br />
591; with Dr. Muffage, out to castrate Slothrop; has a black spade on his cheek<br />
<br />
<div id="sporri"></div>'''Spörri'''<br /><br />
455; aerodynamics person on S-Gerät project; ignores Khlaetsch's cries for help, 684; [[Spörri|Etymological Musings]]<br />
<br />
'''Spottbilligfilm AG'''<br /><br />
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;<br />
<br />
'''SPQR'''<br /><br />
135; Latin: senatus populusque Romanus = the senate and the people of Rome; also acronym for small profits, quick returns<br />
<br />
'''S.P.R.'''<br /><br />
153; Society for Psychical Research; 633;<br />
<br />
'''Spree-Oder Canal'''<br /><br />
433; in the Russian sector of Berlin, where Slothrop & Margherita stay; 457 [MAP]<br />
<br />
<div id="springer"></div>'''Springer, Der'''<br /><br />
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; [[Der Springer|Etymological Musings...]]<br />
<br />
'''Sprudelhof'''<br /><br />
458; German: "Spring or Well" + "Yard" or "Palace"; main drag of Bad Karma on the Spree-Oder Canal; 476<br />
<br />
'''Sprue, Amy'''<br /><br />
329-30; Tyrone's ancestor who was a "genuine Salem Witch"<br />
<br />
'''Squalidozzi, Francisco'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''ss'''<br /><br />
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]]<br />
<br />
'''Stage Door Canteen'''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
<div id="stalin">'''Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953)'''</div><br />
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, [[M#mustache|mustache]] 368; 373; "Even Stalin's had [doubts]" 703<br />
<br />
'''Statue of Liberty'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
'''Sterling, Alan'''<br /><br />
277; fiancé of Fleurette who was raised from birth to carry on the monstrous line of the emperor of the underworld, [[F#fumanchu|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.<br />
<br />
'''Stettin'''<br /><br />
or Szczecin in Polish; a Baltic seaport, ceded by German to Poland following WWII; 293; 408; 418;<br />
<br />
'''Steve'''<br /><br />
449-50: GE employee and Charles' "colleague" on the Toiletship; husband of Sheila<br />
<br />
'''Stickstoff Syndikat'''<br /><br />
580; Jamf "getting Weimar to subsidize the IG's";<br />
<br />
'''Stick, Joaquin'''<br /><br />
9; at Pirate's maisonette<br />
<br />
'''Stiletto May'''<br /><br />
129; character conjured by the presence of the black man in choir at the Advent service attended by Roger and Jessica<br />
<br />
'''Stinnes, Hugo (1870-1924)'''<br /><br />
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]]<br />
<br />
'''Stodda'''<br /><br />
406; "treatise on steam turbines" studied by Pökler at Peenemünde in '38<br />
<br />
[[Stones|'''STONES''']]<br />
<br />
'''Stonybloke, Will'''<br /><br />
65; friend of Slothrop's who appears in toilet adventure<br />
<br />
'''Sträggeli'''<br /><br />
258; listed under "Espionage, Industrial" on the list of Zürich cafés, where Slothrop meets Mario Schweitar; 268;<br />
<br />
'''Stralsund'''<br /><br />
532; "Semlower Strasse in" 692;<br />
<br />
'''streets'''<br /><br />
692; "Semlower Strasse in Stralsund"; "Hafenstrasse in Greifswald"; "Slüterstrasse in the old part of Rostock"; "Wandfärberstrasse in Lüneburg";<br />
<br />
'''Stresemann, Gustav (1878-1929)'''<br /><br />
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'"<br />
<br />
'''Strobe'''<br /><br />
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"<br />
<br />
'''Stuggles, Constable'''<br /><br />
73; tried to stop LeFroyd from jumping off cliff; 74<br />
<br />
'''Südwest'''<br /><br />
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]<br />
<br />
'''Sue, Eugene (1804-57)'''<br /><br />
13; "a Eugene Sue melodrama"<br />
<br />
: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.<br />'''<br /><br />
The above is from this [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/esue.htm excellent online biography].<br />
<br />
'''Suggenthal'''<br /><br />
269;<br />
<br />
'''Sundial'''<br /><br />
472; cartoon character<br />
<br />
'''surface'''<br /><br />
"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;<br />
<br />
'''sus. per coll. crowd'''<br /><br />
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'."<br />
<br />
'''Suso, Heinrich (1295-1336)'''<br /><br />
129; German mystic and preacher. His composition In Dulci Jubilo is a German/Latin macaronic carol (Pynchon (mis)spells it "macronic" and (mis)dates it as "fifteenth century"); the first verse (of four), quoted in GR, can be translated as follows:<br />
<br />
:In dulci jubilo (In sweet Joy)<br /><br />
:Sing and shout all below!<br /><br />
:He for whom we're pining<br /><br />
:Lies in praesepio (In a manger)<br /><br />
:Like the sun is shining<br /><br />
:Matris in gremio. (In His mothers lap.)<br /><br />
:Qui est A et O. (Who is Alpha and Omega.)<br /><br />
:In Dulci Jubilo Web Page<br />
<br />
'''Suvorov'''<br /><br />
350; Rozhdestvenski's flagship on which Tchitcherine's father was a gunner<br />
<br />
'''Swanlake, Jessica'''<br /><br />
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<br />
<br />
<div id="nancy"></div>'''Swanlake, Nancy'''<br /><br />
174-77; Jessica's sister; late husband was Keith; kids: Penelope (also p.277), Claire, Elizabeth<br />
<br />
'''Swinemünde'''<br /><br />
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.<br />
<br />
'''Swope, Gerard (1872-1957)'''<br /><br />
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;<br />
<br />
'''Sztup, Mme.'''<br /><br />
463; Yiddish: "poke" or "fuck"; passenger on the Anubis<br />
<br />
{{GR Alpha Nav}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_3-7&diff=3509Pages 3-72012-07-10T20:30:03Z<p>Benvolio: moving deleted entries to a new section on letters/words and patterns</p>
<hr />
<div>{{GR PbP Text}}<br />
<br />
==Page 3==<br />
3.03 '''The Evacuation'''<br><br />
First instance in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' of a lifetime stylistic trait of Pynchon's: unpredictable use of Capitalization. <br />
*In ''Mason & Dixon'', Pynchon employs capitalization of nouns widely in semi-accordance with the style of 18th-century written English. <br />
*All nouns are capitalized in German. Worth noting because the country, language and history loom so large in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' as well as Pynchon's first two novels, so much so that Pynchon scholar David Cowart refers these novels as Pynchon's "German period."<br />
<br />
3.03 '''theatre'''<br><br />
Besides the normal meanings, including "theater of war", 'theatre' is the name that fireworks' organizers call a sky display.<br />
<br />
3.05 '''iron queen'''<br><br />
a queensize bed made of iron. Hardly made after 1900. Queen Victoria had a famous brass (and iron) one in the Crystal Palace! "Beds made of hollow tubes of steel, iron, and brass came to be manufactured in the mid 19th century.<br />
These were to be used both by soldiers and civilians. Their main advantage at that time was that unlike wooden beds, these could not be infested with bedbugs. Queen Victoria's brass bed at the Crystal Palace has been the most famous antique brass bed.<br><br />
By the late 19th century, metal beds were nearly out of fashion." Antique beds [[http://www.bestinbeds.com/beds/antique-bed.html]]<br />
<br />
Also, In The Odyssey, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to Persephone as '''the Iron Queen'''. Of the four gods of Empedocles' elements it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo, for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden". Wikipedia<br />
[[http://www.en.wikipedia.org/Persephone]]<br />
<br />
3.07 '''crystal palace'''<br><br />
See Alpha entry, especially this re cultural meaning:<br><br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br> <br />
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. <br />
<br />
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":<br><br />
http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/cryspal.html<br />
<br />
That the Crystal Palace Exhibition "marked the beginning of a tradition of world's fairs" can remind that ''Against the Day'' starts at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago. More international optimism.<br />
<br />
3.14 '''second sheep'''<br /><br />
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 [[Pages 549-557#555|555.29-31]].<br />
<br />
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.<br><br />
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 <br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep]<br><br />
<br />
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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep]<br><br />
<br />
3.19 '''half-silvered'''<br><br />
adj. (of a mirror) having an incomplete reflective coating, so that half the incident light is reflected and half transmitted: used in optical instruments and two-way mirrors. Collins Dictionary<br><br />
See the splitting of light all through ''Against the Day'', Pynchon's 2006<br />
novel.<br />
<br />
3.19 '''view finder'''<br><br />
as two words, this seems to refer to handheld devices in which slides were slid and viewed in 3-dimensions. Here is a version still being made <br />
[http://porters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=PCS&Product_Code=520098&Product_Count=&Category_Code= view finder].<br> "half-silvered" above seems most correct with this kind of device. <br />
<br />
3.22 '''They pass in line'''<br><br />
A Pynchonian leitmotif. The linearity of lining up has resonances throughout his work, articulated most straightforwardly in ''Against the Day'', which starts with "Single up all Lines!", and perhaps dealt with<br />
most profoundly in ''Mason & Dixon'', a novel about creating the "Mason & Dixon line".<br />
<br />
3.25 '''Rain comes down'''<br><br />
Pynchon's first published story is called ''The Small Rain''. See his remarks on rain in fiction in ''Slow Learner''.<br />
<br />
3.30 '''naptha winters'''<br><br />
Naptha is the flammable liquid obtained from the distillation of coal and used to fire gaslights and heaters. ...<br />
<br />
3.32 '''rolling-stock absence'''<br><br />
Rolling stock is the collective term that describes all the vehicles which move on a railway.<br />
<br />
3.35 '''Absolute Zero'''<br><br />
Theoretical state when no molecules move. [http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/012992.html..Absolute Zero]. State<br />
of entropy, a key concept of Thomas Pynchon's. See early story, ''Entropy'' in ''Slow Learner''.<br />
<br />
3.36 '''places whose ''names he has never heard'''''<br><br />
'secret cities of poor', deep under these fallen girders. Places<br />
that have never been spoken of, yet exist. Lower than ''Low-lands''.<br><br />
Later in Pynchon's world,in other books, ''Mason & Dixon'' and ''Against the Day'', we will travel deeper underground, to places with no names we know, it seems. See a "progressive ''knotting into''", 3.26 in GR.<br />
<br />
3.37 '''the walls break down'''<br> <br />
See "wall of death" later in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. A-and in ''Against the Day''.<br />
<br />
==Page 4==<br />
4.01 '''getting narrower...cornering tighter and tighter'''<br><br />
Cf. the rationalization of choice and similar phrasing in ''Against the Day'', pynchon wiki p. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25 10]<br />
<br />
4.05 '''caravan'''<br><br />
1) a procession, in single file, of merchants or pilgrims<br />
2) a procession of mules, camels or certain other animals. Sources: Online dictionary and wikipedia.<br> 3) ''Caravan'' is a song by Van Morrison included on his 1970 album, ''Moondance''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_%28Van_Morrison_song%29 Caravan]<br><br />
Pilgrim has Pynchonian resonances, especially in ''Against the Day''.<br> A-And, once again, notice the singleing up of lines.<br />
<br />
4.07 '''cockade'''<br><br />
1) n. An ornament, such as a rosette or knot of ribbon, usually worn on the hat as a badge. [Alteration of obsolete cockard , from French.]<br><br />
<br />
2) Operational code name for Allied deception operations intended to draw attention away from Normandy prior to D-Day<br />
[http://www.secondworldwar.co.uk/glossc.html]<br />
<br />
Cf. pun: cock aid, esp. as Slothrop's 'condition' within ''Gravity's Rainbow'' is revealed.<br />
<br />
4.07 '''the color of lead'''<br><br />
cockades are usually brightly colored. Lead is not. <br><br />
<br />
Lead is a malleable toxic metallic element, bluish-white in color that<br />
tarnishes to a dull gray. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead Lead]<br><br />
<br />
Lead is the only currency-carrying element which does not absorb nor emit heat. Entropic, so to speak. Another resonance for "toward the zero"?<br><br />
<br />
Lead is what bullets are made of.<br />
<br />
4.12 '''corridors straight and functional'''<br><br />
More forced linearity.<br />
<br />
4.31 '''But it is already light...light has come percolating in'''<br><br />
See also the opening lines of Pynchon's next book, 'Vineland', which begins with someone waking from a (possibly prophetic) dream, with light streaming in.<br />
<br />
4.37 '''the different levels of the enormous room'''<br><br />
The transition from dream to waking is so subtle, and beautifully done, right down to little details, such as how the dreamer's real and dreamt surroundings cross over: the multi-levelled carriage of the dream becomes, on awaking, the room with many levels; the carriage's evacuees ('second sheep') become the room's 'drunken wastrels', etc.<br />
<br />
==Page 5==<br />
5.03 '''His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.'''<br /><br />
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.")<br />
<br />
5.03 '''He is wrapped in a thick blanket, a tartan of orange, rust, and scarlet. His skull feels made of metal.'''<br /><br />
<br />
The rust in the tartan goes well with the metal-feeling skull. And there's a lot of metal in the preceding pages - lead, girders, the iron queen, the metal train tracks, etc. So it's appropriate that Prentice wakes feeling metallic.<br />
<br />
5.22-24 '''a maisonette erected last century, not far from Chelsea Embankment, by Corydon Throsp, an acquaintance of the Rossettis' who wore hair smocks and liked to cultivate pharmaceutical plants up on the roof'''<br /> <br />
<br />
There appears to be no single maisonette near the Chelsea Embankment fitting the description of Pirate's: mullioned windows (p4), French windows, spiral ladder to the roof, parapets and a view of the Thames (p6), mediaeval windows (p93), roof ledges (p111), and of course a roof large and flat enough to hold a bananery, or some pigs. Rossetti, who we're told Throsp is on nodding terms with, and Swinburne lived at No. 16 Cheyne Walk; Rossetti kept a small zoo in the house, including peacocks (die Pfaue). Thomas Carlyle's house is nearby in Cheyne Row. There is a bust of Rossetti in the strip of park separating Cheyne Walk, where Keith Richards, not unfamiliar with Osbie Feel's kind of mushrooms, once lived, from the embankment. <br />
<br />
Rossetti's wife died of a drug overdose, and he took to keeping wombats as pets; one of these wombats used to attend the dinner table, and was said to have provided the inspiration for the Dormouse character in Alice in Wonderland.<br />
<br />
That Dormouse's advice - "feed your head" - was used at the end of Jefferson Airplane's mushroom flavoured, Alice-inspired song 'White Rabbit'. Way later on in the book, Slothrop has a dream in which a statue of the White Rabbit in Llandudno is giving him sage advice, but he loses it as he wakes. Oddly enough, the drug that killed Rossetti's wife was laudanum, which isn't very different from 'Llandudno'. Of course that's almost certainly just a coincidence, but all of the foregoing is the sort of stuff you find yourself digging up by chasing after the countless references Pynchon sews into the fabric of the book.<br />
<br />
<br />
5.32 '''all got scumbled together, eventually, by the knives of the seasons, to an impasto, feet thick, of unbelievable black topsoil'''<br /><br />
<br />
Didn't notice 'scumbled' first time round, I was going too fast. Second<br />
read I looked it up. Scumbled? Isn't that some sort of painting<br />
technique? Pynchon make a mistake there? Mean to say scrambled?<br />
Hmmmmmmmm. Then I thought of the 'knives' bit, wondered if artists might<br />
use a [http://painting.about.com/od/paintingforbeginners/a/Painting_Knife.htm palette knife] to do this scumbling business. A Google search for<br />
"scumble knife palette " found me this:<br />
<br />
http://www.messums.com/sub_newsview.ink?nid=11191<br />
<br />
"Hard impasto ridges left by the edge of the knife provided the texture<br />
I needed to bring the waves crashing in."<br />
<br />
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/impasto Impasto] eh? I thought that just meant paste. So the knives in "knives of<br />
the seasons" makes perfect sense. And Dictionary.com throws up another<br />
interesting nugget:<br />
<br />
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=scumbled<br />
<br />
"To blur the outlines of: a writer who scumbled the line that divides<br />
history and fiction." <br />
<br />
Apt example!<br />
<br />
<br />
A-and the wonderful phrase, "knives of the seasons" embodies another lifelong deep theme in Pynchon's work: that the 'wheeling' of time [see later in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and ''Against the Day''], the cycle of nature, is an ineluctable good thing, even as it knifes us, ravages, us. It thickens us, impasto-like, gives us topsoil in our characters, so to speak.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
==Page 6==<br />
[[image:dna-molecule.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]6.09 '''a spiral ladder'''<br /><br />
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at [[Pages 7-16#10|10.14]].<br><br />
Double-helix structure like a mandala, pervasive in GR:<br><br />
"Mandala" is an ancient Sanskrit word meaning "sacred circle that protects the soul." It also refers to the sacred cosmograms that serve as core symbols of all cultures. Westerners have been fascinated for centuries about the mandalas of the Hindu-Buddhist cultures of Asia, most often painted geometric diagrams of great beauty and sophistication, that draw the viewer into a realm of balance, harmony, and calm. But such diagrams are actually architectural blueprints of the purified realm of bliss that we can only realize through enlightenment. They represent three-dimensional spaces of personal and communal exaltation, palaces for the regal confidence of love, compassion, and universal satisfaction of self and other. Understanding their role in anchoring the world-picture of a culture or a person provides a new insight into the "mandalas" of our own culture – the national space anchored by the Washington monument and its environs, or the personal cosmological space anchored by the models of the solar system, '''the DNA double-helix molecule''', and the atom. [http://www.amazon.com/Mandala-Enlightenment-Denise-Patry-Leidy/dp/1585678503 Mandala]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
A recent scientific magazine also had an essay [citation needed] on the similarity of the double-helix sructure and the structure of the mandala. A-and, GR, containing mandalas, has been argued to be structured like a mandala. SPOILER of upcoming GR tropes: "Slothrop finds mandalas, sees mandalas in the sky and all around him, and becomes a mandala himself".<br />
"mandalas are part of a spiritual or mythic panoply"...<br />
From ''Thomas Pynchon, The Art of Illusion'' by David Cowart, p. 126.<br />
<br />
Cf. p. 209, ''Mason & Dixon'': " oblique angles with all meridians and that is a spiral coiling round the poles but never reaching them."...<br />
<br />
Cf. ''V.'' where the isle of Malta is also likened to a sort of mandala.<br />
<br />
6 '''The great power station and the gasworks beyond'''<br /> Pirate is looking at the Battersea Power Station. Built in 1937, the Station is well known for appearing below a giant inflatable pig on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals. It has been defunct since 1983. At the time GR is set the plant had two smokestacks; today it has four. According to the London Encyclopedia (ed. C. Hibbert and B. Weinreb) a plaque commemorating Michael Faraday hangs on one wall, but it's not possible to confirm this as the entire site is fenced off. "The gasworks beyond" is the still operational British Gas plant just southeast of the power station. Viewed from Pirate's stretch of the Embankment it seems to lie more to the right of the power station than "beyond" it.<br />
<br />
==Page 7==<br />
7.09 '''Pick bananas'''<br><br />
Pirate's decision after a paragraph on the inevitablity of the rocket's flight can remind one of a famous Buddhist sutra on picking a strawberry:<br />
The Sweetest Strawberry<br><br />
Buddha told a parable in a sutra:<br><br />
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!<br><br />
-Paul Reps, ''Zen Flesh, Zen Bones''<br><br />
from ''Everyday Mind'', edited by Jean Smith <br />
[[http://www.tricycle.com/issues/2_174/dailydharma/3192-1.html]]<br />
<br />
'''seven squares'''<br><br />
The use of the squares to separate chapters was suggested by the production department or editors of GR, not by Pynchon himself. See Edward Mendelson, "Gravity's Encyclopedia," fn. 4. <br />
<br />
Gerald Howard, [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html Bookforum]: ''"It is generally thought that the line of seven squares that serves as a graphic device to separate the unnumbered chapters in the novel is meant to suggest the sprocket holes in film reels, indicating that the book is to be "read" cinematically as a kind of film in prose. Wrong. In one of his letters Kennebeck refers pointedly to the "oblong holes" in censored correspondence from World War II soldiers, then termed V-mail (there's that letter again), and in a letter to Donald Barthelme accompanying a finished copy of the book, Kennebeck makes jocular mention of the sprocket-hole theory, first floated in the Poirier review, and comments, "I little knew what I was contributing to the history of literature." Sometimes a rectangle is just a rectangle—or maybe a censor's mark."''<br />
<br />
A further angle on the squares is this: they are ''vignettes''. Regard the etymology and definition of the word (from Wiktionary http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vignette)<br />
:<br />
<br />
''Etymology'': <br />
First attested in 1751. From French vignette, diminutive of vigne (“vine”) < Latin vīnea < vīnum (“wine”).<br />
<br />
''Definition'':<br />
<br />
(architecture) A running ornament consisting of leaves and tendrils, used in Gothic architecture.<br />
<br />
(printing) A decorative design, originally representing vine branches or tendrils, at the head of a chapter, of a manuscript or printed book, or in a similar position.<br />
<br />
(by extension) Any small borderless picture in a book, especially an engraving, photograph, or the like, which vanishes gradually at the edge.<br />
<br />
(by extension) A short story that presents a scene or tableau, or paints a picture.<br />
<br />
The small picture on a postage stamp.<br />
<br />
Lends new meaning to the line "Tonight they will shoot ''wine''."<br />
<br />
{{GR PbP}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_3-7&diff=3508Pages 3-72012-07-10T20:13:54Z<p>Benvolio: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{GR PbP Text}}<br />
<br />
==Page 3==<br />
<br />
3.01 '''A'''<br><br />
The shape of the first letter recalls both the eye of the pyramid and the rocket standing on its fins. A is also a sort of reverse V - the V-2 was also known as the A-4. Finally compare the first and last typographical characters in the book: '''A''' and '''--'''. If the first is the rocket waiting to fly, the last is the flattened impact site with nothing left standing. <br />
<br />
3.01 '''A screaming comes across the sky.'''<br><br />
Note the internal alliteration of K and S, and the double s in "across", the first of many.<br />
<br />
3.03 '''The Evacuation'''<br><br />
First instance in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' of a lifetime stylistic trait of Pynchon's: unpredictable use of Capitalization. Capitalization is usually applied to nouns, but not uniformly. Often a matter of emphasis. See ''Mason & Dixon'' for the widest use, there imitating the writing of the time in which the book is set.<br><br />
The use throughout all his work might indicate how well-read and influenced by works written before capitalization was standardized Pynchon is.<br><br />
The full rules of capitalization for English are complicated. The rules have also changed over time, generally to capitalize fewer terms; to the modern reader, an 18th century document seems to use initial capitals excessively. Wikipedia<br />
Also note the double-entendre: "evacuation" can mean "shit".<br />
<br />
3.03 '''theatre'''<br><br />
Besides the normal meanings, including "theater of war", 'theatre' is the name that fireworks' organizers call a sky display.<br />
<br />
3.05 '''iron queen'''<br><br />
a queensize bed made of iron. Hardly made after 1900. Queen Victoria had a famous brass (and iron) one in the Crystal Palace! "Beds made of hollow tubes of steel, iron, and brass came to be manufactured in the mid 19th century.<br />
These were to be used both by soldiers and civilians. Their main advantage at that time was that unlike wooden beds, these could not be infested with bedbugs. Queen Victoria's brass bed at the Crystal Palace has been the most famous antique brass bed.<br><br />
By the late 19th century, metal beds were nearly out of fashion." Antique beds [[http://www.bestinbeds.com/beds/antique-bed.html]]<br />
<br />
Also, In The Odyssey, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to Persephone as '''the Iron Queen'''. Of the four gods of Empedocles' elements it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo, for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden". Wikipedia<br />
[[http://www.en.wikipedia.org/Persephone]]<br />
<br />
3.07 '''crystal palace'''<br><br />
See Alpha entry, especially this re cultural meaning:<br><br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br> <br />
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. <br />
<br />
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":<br><br />
http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/cryspal.html<br />
<br />
That the Crystal Palace Exhibition "marked the beginning of a tradition of world's fairs" can remind that ''Against the Day'' starts at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago. More international optimism.<br />
<br />
3.14 '''second sheep'''<br /><br />
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 [[Pages 549-557#555|555.29-31]].<br />
<br />
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.<br><br />
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 <br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep]<br><br />
<br />
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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep]<br><br />
<br />
3.19 '''half-silvered'''<br><br />
adj. (of a mirror) having an incomplete reflective coating, so that half the incident light is reflected and half transmitted: used in optical instruments and two-way mirrors. Collins Dictionary<br><br />
See the splitting of light all through ''Against the Day'', Pynchon's 2006<br />
novel.<br />
<br />
3.19 '''view finder'''<br><br />
as two words, this seems to refer to handheld devices in which slides were slid and viewed in 3-dimensions. Here is a version still being made <br />
[http://porters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=PCS&Product_Code=520098&Product_Count=&Category_Code= view finder].<br> "half-silvered" above seems most correct with this kind of device. <br />
<br />
3.22 '''They pass in line'''<br><br />
A Pynchonian leitmotif. The linearity of lining up has resonances throughout his work, articulated most straightforwardly in ''Against the Day'', which starts with "Single up all Lines!", and perhaps dealt with<br />
most profoundly in ''Mason & Dixon'', a novel about creating the "Mason & Dixon line".<br />
<br />
3.25 '''Rain comes down'''<br><br />
Pynchon's first published story is called ''The Small Rain''. See his remarks on rain in fiction in ''Slow Learner''.<br />
<br />
3.30 '''naptha winters'''<br><br />
Naptha is the flammable liquid obtained from the distillation of coal and used to fire gaslights and heaters. ...<br />
<br />
3.32 '''rolling-stock absence'''<br><br />
Rolling stock is the collective term that describes all the vehicles which move on a railway.<br />
<br />
3.35 '''Absolute Zero'''<br><br />
Theoretical state when no molecules move. [http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/012992.html..Absolute Zero]. State<br />
of entropy, a key concept of Thomas Pynchon's. See early story, ''Entropy'' in ''Slow Learner''.<br />
<br />
3.36 '''places whose ''names he has never heard'''''<br><br />
'secret cities of poor', deep under these fallen girders. Places<br />
that have never been spoken of, yet exist. Lower than ''Low-lands''.<br><br />
Later in Pynchon's world,in other books, ''Mason & Dixon'' and ''Against the Day'', we will travel deeper underground, to places with no names we know, it seems. See a "progressive ''knotting into''", 3.26 in GR.<br />
<br />
3.37 '''the walls break down'''<br> <br />
See "wall of death" later in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. A-and in ''Against the Day''.<br />
<br />
==Page 4==<br />
4.01 '''getting narrower...cornering tighter and tighter'''<br><br />
Cf. the rationalization of choice and similar phrasing in ''Against the Day'', pynchon wiki p. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25 10]<br />
<br />
4.05 '''caravan'''<br><br />
1) a procession, in single file, of merchants or pilgrims<br />
2) a procession of mules, camels or certain other animals. Sources: Online dictionary and wikipedia.<br> 3) ''Caravan'' is a song by Van Morrison included on his 1970 album, ''Moondance''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_%28Van_Morrison_song%29 Caravan]<br><br />
Pilgrim has Pynchonian resonances, especially in ''Against the Day''.<br> A-And, once again, notice the singleing up of lines.<br />
<br />
4.07 '''cockade'''<br><br />
1) n. An ornament, such as a rosette or knot of ribbon, usually worn on the hat as a badge. [Alteration of obsolete cockard , from French.]<br><br />
<br />
2) Operational code name for Allied deception operations intended to draw attention away from Normandy prior to D-Day<br />
[http://www.secondworldwar.co.uk/glossc.html]<br />
<br />
Cf. pun: cock aid, esp. as Slothrop's 'condition' within ''Gravity's Rainbow'' is revealed.<br />
<br />
4.07 '''the color of lead'''<br><br />
cockades are usually brightly colored. Lead is not. <br><br />
<br />
Lead is a malleable toxic metallic element, bluish-white in color that<br />
tarnishes to a dull gray. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead Lead]<br><br />
<br />
Lead is the only currency-carrying element which does not absorb nor emit heat. Entropic, so to speak. Another resonance for "toward the zero"?<br><br />
<br />
Lead is what bullets are made of.<br />
<br />
4.12 '''corridors straight and functional'''<br><br />
More forced linearity.<br />
<br />
4.31 '''But it is already light...light has come percolating in'''<br><br />
See also the opening lines of Pynchon's next book, 'Vineland', which begins with someone waking from a (possibly prophetic) dream, with light streaming in.<br />
<br />
4.37 '''the different levels of the enormous room'''<br><br />
The transition from dream to waking is so subtle, and beautifully done, right down to little details, such as how the dreamer's real and dreamt surroundings cross over: the multi-levelled carriage of the dream becomes, on awaking, the room with many levels; the carriage's evacuees ('second sheep') become the room's 'drunken wastrels', etc.<br />
<br />
==Page 5==<br />
5.03 '''His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.'''<br /><br />
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.")<br />
<br />
5.03 '''He is wrapped in a thick blanket, a tartan of orange, rust, and scarlet. His skull feels made of metal.'''<br /><br />
<br />
The rust in the tartan goes well with the metal-feeling skull. And there's a lot of metal in the preceding pages - lead, girders, the iron queen, the metal train tracks, etc. So it's appropriate that Prentice wakes feeling metallic.<br />
<br />
5.22-24 '''a maisonette erected last century, not far from Chelsea Embankment, by Corydon Throsp, an acquaintance of the Rossettis' who wore hair smocks and liked to cultivate pharmaceutical plants up on the roof'''<br /> <br />
<br />
This is a pretty posh address for this lot, is it not? Kensington?<br />
<br />
There appears to be no single maisonette near the Chelsea Embankment fitting the description of Pirate's: mullioned windows (p4), French windows, spiral ladder to the roof, parapets and a view of the Thames (p6), mediaeval windows (p93), roof ledges (p111), and of course a roof large and flat enough to hold a bananery, or some pigs. Rossetti, who we're told Throsp is on nodding terms with, and Swinburne lived at No. 16 Cheyne Walk; Rossetti kept a small zoo in the house, including peacocks (die Pfaue). Thomas Carlyle's house is nearby in Cheyne Row. There is a bust of Rossetti in the strip of park separating Cheyne Walk, where Keith Richards, not unfamiliar with Osbie Feel's kind of mushrooms, once lived, from the embankment. <br />
<br />
Rossetti's wife died of a drug overdose, and he took to keeping wombats as pets; one of these wombats used to attend the dinner table, and was said to have provided the inspiration for the Dormouse character in Alice in Wonderland.<br />
<br />
That Dormouse's advice - "feed your head" - was used at the end of Jefferson Airplane's mushroom flavoured, Alice-inspired song 'White Rabbit'. Way later on in the book, Slothrop has a dream in which a statue of the White Rabbit in Llandudno is giving him sage advice, but he loses it as he wakes. Oddly enough, the drug that killed Rossetti's wife was laudanum, which isn't very different from 'Llandudno'. Of course that's almost certainly just a coincidence, but all of the foregoing is the sort of stuff you find yourself digging up by chasing after the countless references Pynchon sews into the fabric of the book.<br />
<br />
<br />
5.32 '''all got scumbled together, eventually, by the knives of the seasons, to an impasto, feet thick, of unbelievable black topsoil'''<br /><br />
<br />
Didn't notice 'scumbled' first time round, I was going too fast. Second<br />
read I looked it up. Scumbled? Isn't that some sort of painting<br />
technique? Pynchon make a mistake there? Mean to say scrambled?<br />
Hmmmmmmmm. Then I thought of the 'knives' bit, wondered if artists might<br />
use a [http://painting.about.com/od/paintingforbeginners/a/Painting_Knife.htm palette knife] to do this scumbling business. A Google search for<br />
"scumble knife palette " found me this:<br />
<br />
http://www.messums.com/sub_newsview.ink?nid=11191<br />
<br />
"Hard impasto ridges left by the edge of the knife provided the texture<br />
I needed to bring the waves crashing in."<br />
<br />
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/impasto Impasto] eh? I thought that just meant paste. So the knives in "knives of<br />
the seasons" makes perfect sense. And Dictionary.com throws up another<br />
interesting nugget:<br />
<br />
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=scumbled<br />
<br />
"To blur the outlines of: a writer who scumbled the line that divides<br />
history and fiction." <br />
<br />
Apt example!<br />
<br />
<br />
A-and the wonderful phrase, "knives of the seasons" embodies another lifelong deep theme in Pynchon's work: that the 'wheeling' of time [see later in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and ''Against the Day''], the cycle of nature, is an ineluctable good thing, even as it knifes us, ravages, us. It thickens us, impasto-like, gives us topsoil in our characters, so to speak.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
==Page 6==<br />
[[image:dna-molecule.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]6.09 '''a spiral ladder'''<br /><br />
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at [[Pages 7-16#10|10.14]].<br><br />
Double-helix structure like a mandala, pervasive in GR:<br><br />
"Mandala" is an ancient Sanskrit word meaning "sacred circle that protects the soul." It also refers to the sacred cosmograms that serve as core symbols of all cultures. Westerners have been fascinated for centuries about the mandalas of the Hindu-Buddhist cultures of Asia, most often painted geometric diagrams of great beauty and sophistication, that draw the viewer into a realm of balance, harmony, and calm. But such diagrams are actually architectural blueprints of the purified realm of bliss that we can only realize through enlightenment. They represent three-dimensional spaces of personal and communal exaltation, palaces for the regal confidence of love, compassion, and universal satisfaction of self and other. Understanding their role in anchoring the world-picture of a culture or a person provides a new insight into the "mandalas" of our own culture – the national space anchored by the Washington monument and its environs, or the personal cosmological space anchored by the models of the solar system, '''the DNA double-helix molecule''', and the atom. [http://www.amazon.com/Mandala-Enlightenment-Denise-Patry-Leidy/dp/1585678503 Mandala]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
A recent scientific magazine also had an essay [citation needed] on the similarity of the double-helix sructure and the structure of the mandala. A-and, GR, containing mandalas, has been argued to be structured like a mandala. SPOILER of upcoming GR tropes: "Slothrop finds mandalas, sees mandalas in the sky and all around him, and becomes a mandala himself".<br />
"mandalas are part of a spiritual or mythic panoply"...<br />
From ''Thomas Pynchon, The Art of Illusion'' by David Cowart, p. 126.<br />
<br />
Cf. p. 209, ''Mason & Dixon'': " oblique angles with all meridians and that is a spiral coiling round the poles but never reaching them."...<br />
<br />
Cf. ''V.'' where the isle of Malta is also likened to a sort of mandala.<br />
<br />
6 '''The great power station and the gasworks beyond'''<br /> Pirate is looking at the Battersea Power Station. Built in 1937, the Station is well known for appearing below a giant inflatable pig on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals. It has been defunct since 1983. At the time GR is set the plant had two smokestacks; today it has four. According to the London Encyclopedia (ed. C. Hibbert and B. Weinreb) a plaque commemorating Michael Faraday hangs on one wall, but it's not possible to confirm this as the entire site is fenced off. "The gasworks beyond" is the still operational British Gas plant just southeast of the power station. Viewed from Pirate's stretch of the Embankment it seems to lie more to the right of the power station than "beyond" it.<br />
<br />
==Page 7==<br />
7.09 '''Pick bananas'''<br><br />
Pirate's decision after a paragraph on the inevitablity of the rocket's flight can remind one of a famous Buddhist sutra on picking a strawberry:<br />
The Sweetest Strawberry<br><br />
Buddha told a parable in a sutra:<br><br />
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!<br><br />
-Paul Reps, ''Zen Flesh, Zen Bones''<br><br />
from ''Everyday Mind'', edited by Jean Smith <br />
[[http://www.tricycle.com/issues/2_174/dailydharma/3192-1.html]]<br />
<br />
'''seven squares'''<br><br />
The use of the squares to separate chapters was suggested by the production department or editors of GR, not by Pynchon himself. See Edward Mendelson, "Gravity's Encyclopedia," fn. 4. <br />
<br />
Gerald Howard, [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html Bookforum]: ''"It is generally thought that the line of seven squares that serves as a graphic device to separate the unnumbered chapters in the novel is meant to suggest the sprocket holes in film reels, indicating that the book is to be "read" cinematically as a kind of film in prose. Wrong. In one of his letters Kennebeck refers pointedly to the "oblong holes" in censored correspondence from World War II soldiers, then termed V-mail (there's that letter again), and in a letter to Donald Barthelme accompanying a finished copy of the book, Kennebeck makes jocular mention of the sprocket-hole theory, first floated in the Poirier review, and comments, "I little knew what I was contributing to the history of literature." Sometimes a rectangle is just a rectangle—or maybe a censor's mark."''<br />
<br />
A further angle on the squares is this: they are ''vignettes''. Regard the etymology and definition of the word (from Wiktionary http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vignette)<br />
:<br />
<br />
''Etymology'': <br />
First attested in 1751. From French vignette, diminutive of vigne (“vine”) < Latin vīnea < vīnum (“wine”).<br />
<br />
''Definition'':<br />
<br />
(architecture) A running ornament consisting of leaves and tendrils, used in Gothic architecture.<br />
<br />
(printing) A decorative design, originally representing vine branches or tendrils, at the head of a chapter, of a manuscript or printed book, or in a similar position.<br />
<br />
(by extension) Any small borderless picture in a book, especially an engraving, photograph, or the like, which vanishes gradually at the edge.<br />
<br />
(by extension) A short story that presents a scene or tableau, or paints a picture.<br />
<br />
The small picture on a postage stamp.<br />
<br />
Lends new meaning to the line "Tonight they will shoot ''wine''."<br />
<br />
{{GR PbP}}</div>Benvoliohttps://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=3507Main Page2012-07-10T20:07:21Z<p>Benvolio: removed for copyright</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:book_GR_sm.jpg|right]]<big>'''Welcome to the ''Gravity's Rainbow'' Wiki!'''</big><br />
<br />
To become a contributor/editor, [http://pynchonwiki.com/mycaptcha/captcha-page.php '''Create an account.'''] <br />
<br />
:[http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FGravitys-Rainbow-Classics-Deluxe-Penguin%2Fdp%2F0143039946%2Fsr%3D1-2%2Fqid%3D1165211961%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks&tag=hyperartspynchon&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325'''Order ''Gravity's Rainbow''''']<br />
<br />
<likebutton>http%3A%2F%2Fgravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com%2Fwiki%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DMain_Page</likebutton><br />
<br />
This is the wiki for [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Besides using the Alphabetical Index and the page-by-page annotation, you can also take a look at [[Gravity's Rainbow covers|''Gravity's Rainbow'' covers]], read the [[Gravity's Rainbow Reviews|reviews]], or [[Gravity's Rainbow Title|entertain some theories on the source of the title]].<br />
<br />
<div id="announcement-home"><br />
<p class="normal">'''Review of Weisenburger's 2nd ed. of ''A Gravity's Rainbow Companion'''<br />Professor Don Larrson, he of the Companion's Companion to ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (which was rolled into this wiki), reviews Steve Weisenburger's the second, revised edition of ''A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel''. [[Weisenburger's Companion, 2nd Edition|Read it...]].</p><br />
<br />
<p class="normal">'''Marc Getter - Designer & Illustrator'''<br />[[Marc Getter - Designer and Artist|Marc Getter]] (1947-2008) illustrated and designed the original covers for ''Gravity's Rainbow'', in 1972 (published in 1973). Read his bio, as well a pictures of Marc, his wife, and some of his watercolors from the 1990s. </p><br />
<br />
[[The_Hawaiian_Islands_and_Ukuleles|'''Hawaiian cultural references in ''Gravity's Rainbow''''']]</div><br />
<br />
==How to Use this Wiki==<br />
<br />
There are two major ways to use this wiki. The first is the '''''Gravity's Rainbow'' Alphabetical Index''', used to keep track of the myriad characters, real and imagined, as well as events, arcana, and lots of other stuff. The second is the '''Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page''', which allows the reader to look up and contribute allusions and references while reading the book, in a convenient and spoiler-free manner. These two sections are so far almost entirely different, but we're working on integrating them.<br />
<br />
Apart from those, it's up to you.<br />
<br />
==Alphabetical Index==<br />
Information on the characters, events, and everything else in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', organized alphabetically:{{GR_Alpha_Nav}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Page by Page Annotations==<br />
{{GR PbP}}<br />
<br />
==Character Map==<br />
'''**Contains Spoilers**''' <br /><br />
A [http://sciencekings.com/GravitysRainbowCharacters.pdf character map] showing how most of the major characters connect together (PDF).<br />
<br />
== Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines==<br />
<br />
[[Help:Contents|'''Click here for help with editing and creating pages.''']]<br />
<br />
We have a few conventions we ask that you follow:<br />
<br />
* When creating a new page, first check to make sure a page/article about what you want to write about hasn't already been created, by '''[[Special:Allpages|checking the list of all Wiki pages on Pynchon Wiki]]'''. If a page already exists, please modify that one.<br />
<br />
* When creating a new page, if its information pertains to one (and only one) specific Pynchon novel, please categorize it with the appropriate identifier. For example, a page pertaining to ''Gravity's Rainbow'', should use the syntax <code><nowiki>[[Category:GR]]</nowiki></code>.<br />
<br />
* To open a discussion on an individual listing of the Alpha Index, create one using the [[A|entry on Peter Tait]] as an example. Basically, give it a name that identifies the alpha listing (eg <nowiki>[[Name Discussion|DISCUSSION]]</nowiki>) and notice that the visible name will be "DISCUSSION" in full caps, so it stands out a bit.<br />
<br />
* [[Help:Contents|More help for this wiki available here.]]<br />
<br />
==External Links==<br />
<br />
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=iPDGp7VT8H8C&printsec=frontcover '''Search the contents of ''Gravity's Rainbow''''' (Google)]<br />
* [http://www.thomaspynchon.com/ ThomasPynchon.com]<br />
* [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/ The Modern Word Pynchon page]<br />
: [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_gr.html The Modern Word: Gravity's Rainbow]<br />
: [http://z11.invisionfree.com/thefictionalwoods/index.php The Fictional Woods] - a Pynchon forum<br />
: [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm Zak Smith's Illustrations for Each Page of Gravity's Rainbow]<br />
* [http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/grnotes.html A companion's companion to Gravity's Rainbow]<br />
* [http://pynchonoid.blogspot.com/ Pynchonoid Blog]<br />
* [http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/gr/index.html Pomona Gravity's Rainbow page]<br />
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity's_Rainbow Wikipedia Gravity's Rainbow page]<br />
* [http://www.en8848.com.cn/fiction/Fiction/Gerneral/2007-12-05/58883.html Chinese site which includes full text of the novel]<br />
* [http://1010.co.uk/org/autotate.html Collected Annotations to ''Gravity's Rainbow'']<br />
* [http://www.schuelers.com/chaos/chaos7.htm "Chaos and the Psychological Symbolism of the Tarot" by Gerald Schueler, PhD]<br />
* [http://thomaspynchonfakebook.org/ Songs written by Pynchon for ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Music composed and performed by the collaborative band, ''The Thomas Pynchon Fake Book'']<br />
<br />
==Featured Article==<br />
<br />
[[image:marc-getter.jpg|left|thumb|100px|caption|Marc Getter]] '''Marc Getter, Designer & Illustrator of the original ''Gravity's Rainbow'' Cover'''<br /><br />
Last year, Tim Ware decided to find out more about [[Marc Getter - Designer and Artist|Marc Getter]] who did the original ''Gravity's Rainbow'' cover design and illustration &#151; the city silhouette with sunburst sky. He wanted to ask Marc about the process of creating that beautiful cover. unfortunately, Marc had died in 2008. However, Tim was able to get in contact with his wife, Linda, who really wanted to assist in creating a page about Marc for the ''Gravity's Rainbow'' wiki. [[Marc Getter - Designer and Artist|'''Read about Marc Getter and view his wonderful paintings.''']]<br />
<br />
<div style="clear:both;"></div><br />
<br />
[http://www.metawordz.com/2010/12/digitization-on-gravitys-rainbow-p-1.html '''Digitization: Progression from Physical to Cyber Space Via Gravity’s Rainbow, and What Meaning We May Find There''']<br />
<br />
<br />
[[image:6s-7s.gif|175px|left]]<br />
'''At Sixes and Sevens'''<br /><br />
To be "at sixes and sevens" is an English phrase and idiom, common in the United Kingdom. It is used to describe a state of confusion or disarray. <br />
<br />
"He'd never told her, he avoided telling himself, but that was the measure of his faith, as this seventh Christmas of the War came wheeling in another charge at his skinny, shivering flank..." - ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.126 <br />
<br />
"A miscount" - Steven C. Weisenburger, ''A Gravity's Rainbow Companion''<br />
<br />
[[Sixes and Sevens|Um, not so fast there, Steve...]]<br />
<br />
==Gallery==<br />
Below are some of the images you will find on Pynchon Wiki. {{Special:Newimages}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Thanks, and enjoy...</div>Benvolio