Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Pages 72-83

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==PAGE 75==

75.30 '''Dr. Porkyevitch''' 
Another suggestion of one of Pynchon’s favorite motifs, the little cartoon hero Porky Pig. See note at [[V545.04-05]]

==PAGE 78==

78.12 '''Cecil Beaton’s photograph of Margot Asquith''' 
Another example of the Turning Head motif.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/asquith.html]

==PAGE 79==

79.13 '''Webley Silvernail''' 
Webley is the name of the British gun manufacturer. ''The Berkshire Hills'' cites Silvernail House in West Stockbridge as one of the oldest houses in that town (TBH 99).

79.18 '''Geza Rozsavolgyi''' 
Geza’s first name also suggests the Hungarian-American psychologist Geza Roheim, who was one of the first to employ psychoanalytic critiques of culture. Rozsavolgyi is the name of a famous Budapest music store founded in 1850, which also published works by Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly, among others.

==PAGE 80==

80.21-22 '''"Would You Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder, or a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee?"''' 
The World War I song was composed by the team of Sidney Mitchell and Archie Gottlieb in 1918. ('''Note''': This is a correction of my earlier error in attributing the song to the team of Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg, who also composed the songs for ''The Wizard of Oz''.)

==PAGE 81==

81.17 '''The Reverend Paul de la Nuit''' 
A double pun: "Pall [dark and gloomy covering] of the night"; also "Pall de l’ennui [of boredom]."

==PAGE 82==

82.01 '''his most famous compatriot''' 
Rozsavolgyi’s fellow countryman would be, of course, Bela Lugosi, whose speech patterns are suggested by Pynchon’s punctuation of Rozsavolgyi’s dialogue.

82.11 '''Dr. Aaron Thowster''' 
Aaron was the brother of and spokesperson for Moses. A throwster is one who makes threads out of silk. The name is fairly common in Britain.

Pages 60-71

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==Page 63==

63.32-37 '''"Yardbird" Parker is finding out [ . . . ]''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers the following addition to Weisenberger's note on this passage:
"On one of Parker's CDs (Swedish Schnapps +), I found the passage which was quoted by Prof. Weisenburger after Max Harrison, but slightly different, and it is interesting because Parker directly mentions Cherokee: 'Well, that night, I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.' The quotation is taken from 'Hear Me Talkin' To Ya'."

==Page 65==

65.15 '''"Gobbler" Biddle''' 
The Biddles are one of the leading families of Philadelphia, who sometimes vacationed in the Berkshires.

65.16 '''Fu’s Folly''' 
Although, as Weisenburger notes, the character is named for Fu Manchu (who is an important reference for Pointsman later in the novel), it should be recalled that there was also a "Fu" who was a member of the Whole Sick Crew in V.

65.33 '''Jack Kennedy''' 
Contrary to Weisenburger, Kennedy’s first book was titled '''''Why''' England Slept'' (not "When").

==Page 68==

68.01 '''Half an Ark’s better than none.''' 
For Crutchfield, there is only '''one''' of everything, as opposed to two of every animal on Noah’s (whole) Ark. (And how much use is half an Ark in a flood, anyway?)

==Page 69==

69.14 '''a bandana of the regulation magenta and green''' 
The coal-tar colors of organic chemistry that resonate throughout the novel.

69.16 '''Rancho Peligroso''' 
Evokes the Siege Perilous of the Arthurian Grail legend as well as ''Rancho Notorious'', a 1952 Western directed by Fritz Lang and starring Marlene Dietrich. See note at [[V321.06-07]]

==Page 63==
71.11 '''kryptosam''' 
Correspondent Matthias Bauer notes that "sam" derives from the German "samen," for "seed." "Krypto," of course, derives from the same word as "cryptography," the study of codes. Weisenburger claims that the "tyrosine" from which kryptosam is supposed to derive is "undoubtedly fictional," but it is in fact an amino acid, which can convert to melanin, just as Jamf's note indicates (although it is unclear whether semen will in fact act as the catalytic agent).
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/tyrosine.html]

Pages 53-60

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==Page 59==

59.01-02 '''Frank Bridge Variations''' 
The "Frank Bridge Variations" is a composition ("Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge," Opus 10, 1937) by Benjamin Britten, named after one of his teachers. It was one of Britten's first works to win international notice.

Pages 47-53

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==Page 48==

48.25 "''' . . . one of Lazslo Jamf’s subjects . . .''' " 
The name "Jamf" apparently derives from an acronym used by Charlie Parker: "'''J'''ive-'''A'''ss '''M'''other-'''F'''ucker"!

==Page 51==

51.31-32 '''the Ick Regis jetty''' 
The name is Pynchon’s but evokes "The Cobb," the famous jetty at the city of Lyme Regis on the southern coast of England.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/lyme.html]

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==Page 30==

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

==Page 31==

31.28 '''Carroll Eventyr''' 
As Weisenburger notes, "eventyr" is Danish for "adventure" but in the sense of a tale or story ("The Adventures of . . . "). It can signify "folk tales" or "fairy tales," as in Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The first name evokes '''Lewis''' Carroll but it also suggests the astrologer Carroll '''Righter''', whose face appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about growing interest in the occult on March 21, 1969. Righter, nicknamed "The Gregarious Aquarius," later would read charts for Ronald Reagan, among other celebrities. Also see the note at [[V742.29]].
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/righter.html]

==Page 33==

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

==Page 36==

36.27-28 '''the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver''' 
"Beaver" is the nickname for Jessica’s other and more staid lover, Jeremy. The nickname derives from the ‘40s slang for the beard he sports. (For example, in the "home front" film ''Since You Went Away'' [1944], the bearded character played by Monty Woolley is referred to as "Beaver.") The word also is vulgar slang for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/wooley.html]

==Page 37==

37.10-11 '''Fred Roper’s Company of Wonder Midgets''' 
This is apparently a real group, although I have no information on them except that a postcard exists captioned "Fred Roper and His Wonderful Midgets" with a tall man in a busby and military greatcoat and a troop of midgets in uniform under the heading "The Toy Soldier Parade." The website for The Princess Theatre Hunstanton (England) notes that the building opened as the Capitol Theatre in 1932. One of the first acts to play there was "Fred Roper and His 20 Wonder Midgets"!
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/roper.html]

Pages 20-29

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==Page 20==

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

==Page 21==

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

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

==Page 22==

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

==Page 25==

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

==Page 26==

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

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

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

==Page 27==

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

27.31-33 '''They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.''' 
One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' (TBH), a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," Pynchon Notes 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/berkshire.html]

==Page 28==

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

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

==Page 29==

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

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==Page 18==

18.22-23 '''"Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland"''' 
Song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey, composed for the 1942 film Johnny Doughboy, starring Jane Withers and Henry Wilcoxon. Apparently a popular tune, it lasted 16 weeks on the 1942 Hit Parade and was recorded by Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo, among others.

18.25 '''George Formby''' 
See note above at [[V9.05]]. Formby was extraordinarily popular in recordings and films in Britain in the 1940s. Weisenburger claims that Formby’s voice was a "high screech," but it was actually a not-unpleasant baritone. Weisenburger may be confusing Formby with the ukulele-strumming 1960s singing phenomenon Tiny Tim.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/formby.html]

18.30 '''the skin of a Flying Fortress''' 
Correspondent Stephen Remato adds the following comment: "While detailing the debris on Slothrop's desk, Mr. W. suggests that the bomb which explodes over Hiroshima was dropped from a Flying Fortress. While also made by the Boeing company, it was the B29 Super Fortress, not the B17 Flying Fortress, which was the atomic bomber of WW2. The well-known B29 'Enola Gay' dropped the Hiroshima bomb, while the lesser-known B29 'Bock's Car' dropped the Nagasaki bomb. To those unaware, the superficial similarity in name between these types of aircraft is the main similarity only; they are not variations of the same aircraft but quite distinct."

18.38 '''a News of the World''' 
The ''NOTW'' was not merely a daily paper but a highly sensationalistic British weekly tabloid, with virtually no serious news (still being published). That "Slothrop is a faithful reader" says much about his intellectual pursuits. The paper's current website is at:
[http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk]

==Page 19==

19.30 '''the pantechnicon''' 
Weisenburger gives this as "a bazaar in Victorian London," but a more fitting setting for Tantivy’s story of "Lorraine and Judy, Charles the homosexual constable and the piano" would be a warehouse or furniture van. See [[537.16-17.]]
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/pantech.html]

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==Page 9==

9.03 '''Miss Grable''' 
Betty Grable actually became a pin-up favorite in '''1943''' (not 1944), when she had a photo series released. Although she had been featured in various films since the late 1920s, she first became a major box office attraction with the 1940 film Down Argentine Way. The poster is also an example of the motif of the turning head that recurs throughout Gravity’s Rainbow. Correspondent Hazen Bob Dixon notes that Grable was actually pregnant when the picture was taken, which is why her back was turned in the first place. The story is plausible, since Grable did give birth to a daughter (by her husband, band leader Harry James) in March 1944; however, there are other versions of how the image came to be taken.

9.05 '''Civvie Street''' 
In other words, Peacetime, when military personnel will again wear civilian clothes ("civvies"). George Formby had a postwar film titled George in Civvy Street (1946). See note at [[18.25]].

9.29 '''Jungfrau''' 
Correspondent Igor Zabel notes that the name of the famous mountain actually means "Virgin." Matthias Bauer adds:
"The name of the mountain means ''virgin`` in 20th century German. Translated from Kluge ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache``, 23th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1999: ''originally meaning young lady, later generalized to young (unmarried) woman. Mysticism used the word for the Virgin Mary, and the meaning shifted towards young (virgin) woman."

9.14-19 '''Bartley Gobbitch, DeCoverley Pox . . . SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy Bloat''' 
"Gobbitch" comes from the archaic word "gobbet," which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as "a fragment or bit, especially of raw flesh." The names "Pox" and "Bloat" are obvious enough, but "DeCoverley" comes from Sir Roger Decoverley, the prototypical country squire created by Addison and Steele for the Spectator and named in turn for a country reel dance. Overall, the names suggest another version of the "Whole Sick Crew" of Pynchon’s V. "Snipe" (backbite, take potshots) and "shaft" (undercut, screw over) are what these men are presumably assigned to do to others in their various bureaucratic jobs and what they do in conversations at the eponymous pub.

==Page 11==

11.25 '''his batman, a Corporal Wayne''' 
Weisenburger correctly defines "batman" (an aide assigned to a British officer) but misses Pynchon’s joke: Any "batman" with the last name of "Wayne" must have the first name "Bruce"! (Alfred Appel in Nabokov’s Dark Cinema also missed the joke, claiming that Pynchon was poking fun at John Wayne by demoting him to a "mere" corporal!)
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/batman.html]

==Page 13==

13.20 '''during his Kipling period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies''' 
Contrary to Weisenburger, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies were actually the Sudanese natives fighting '''against''' (not conscripted for) the British. Here, Pirate is thinking not of the novels of the arch-apologist for Empire but of such Kipling poems as "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" in which a British soldier declares his grudging admiration for the natives’ fighting spirit.

13.34 '''No Cary Grant . . . medicine in the punchbowls''' 
The reference here is not to the anachronistic Howard Hawks film Monkey Business but to George Stevens’ Gunga Din, the 1939 film loosely inspired by Kipling’s famous poem. Grant and his compatriots (Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) do indeed "lark about" through India, spiking the company punch with elephant medicine and engaging in other pranks. See Weisenburger's note at V684.31-35.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/gungad.html]

==Page 14==

14.07 '''H.A. Loaf''' 
As in "Half a loaf is better than none"?

14.30-31 '''It was a giant Adenoid!''' 
Correspondent Erik Johnson adds the following in relation to the references to the Adenoid here and at 754.38:
"An adenoid is an enlarged mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the pharynx characteristically obstructing breathing--usually used in plural. I believe it's likely that Pynchon is also making reference to 'Adenoid Hynkel,' the character of the dictator (and mockery of Hitler) played by Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator.

14.34 '''Lord Blatherard Osmo''' 
To "blather" is to talk on foolishly (the reason for his mysterious death?). "Osmo" suggests "osmosis," the process by which the giant Adenoid would absorb its victims.

14.04 '''Redcaps''' 
Web correspondent Stephen Remato comments: " . . . Those serving in the British Army use the term to refer to the Military Police (in the American parlance 'snowdrops' in reference to the white helmets and gaiters); the term 'red caps' refers to the red band around the standard British Army officer's cap, what one might call the headband, which is usually khaki, with the exception of the red of the MPs. This makes much more sense in context, when the ownership of a narcotic cigarette is under scrutiny; why would one care if any Sudanese troops discovered this secret?"
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/redcap.html]

Pages 3-7

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==Page 3==

'''second sheep''' 
3.14
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 [[555.29-31]].

==Page 5==
5.03 '''His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.''' 
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.")

 

==Page 6==

6.09 '''a spiral ladder''' 
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at [[10.14]].
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/dna.html]

Pages 3-7

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==Page 3==

'''second sheep''' 
3.14
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 V[[555.29-31]].

==Page 5==
5.03 '''His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.''' 
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.")

 

==Page 6==

6.09 '''a spiral ladder''' 
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at V10.14.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/dna.html]

Pages 3-7

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==Page 3==

'''second sheep''' 
3.14
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 V[[555.29-31]].

'''Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice''' 

==Page 4==

 
==Page 5==
5.03 '''His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.''' 
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.")

 

==Page 6==

6.09 '''a spiral ladder''' 
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at V10.14.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/dna.html]

Pages 72-83

2006-12-30T02:38:28Z

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==PAGE 75==

*V75.30 Dr. Porkyevitch 
Another suggestion of one of Pynchon’s favorite motifs, the little cartoon hero Porky Pig. See note at [[V545.04-05]]

==PAGE 78==

V78.12 Cecil Beaton’s photograph of Margot Asquith 
Another example of the Turning Head motif.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/asquith.html]

==PAGE 79==

*V79.13 Webley Silvernail 
Webley is the name of the British gun manufacturer. ''The Berkshire Hills'' cites Silvernail House in West Stockbridge as one of the oldest houses in that town (TBH 99).

V79.18 Geza Rozsavolgyi 
Geza’s first name also suggests the Hungarian-American psychologist Geza Roheim, who was one of the first to employ psychoanalytic critiques of culture. Rozsavolgyi is the name of a famous Budapest music store founded in 1850, which also published works by Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly, among others.

==PAGE 80==

V80.21-22 "Would You Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder, or a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee?" 
The World War I song was composed by the team of Sidney Mitchell and Archie Gottlieb in 1918. ('''Note''': This is a correction of my earlier error in attributing the song to the team of Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg, who also composed the songs for ''The Wizard of Oz''.)

==PAGE 81==

V81.17 The Reverend Paul de la Nuit 
A double pun: "Pall [dark and gloomy covering] of the night"; also "Pall de l’ennui [of boredom]."

==PAGE 82==

V82.01 his most famous compatriot 
Rozsavolgyi’s fellow countryman would be, of course, Bela Lugosi, whose speech patterns are suggested by Pynchon’s punctuation of Rozsavolgyi’s dialogue.

V82.11 Dr. Aaron Thowster 
Aaron was the brother of and spokesperson for Moses. A throwster is one who makes threads out of silk. The name is fairly common in Britain.

Pages 60-71

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==Page 63==

V63.32-37 "Yardbird" Parker is finding out [ . . . ] 
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers the following addition to Weisenberger's note on this passage:
"On one of Parker's CDs (Swedish Schnapps +), I found the passage which was quoted by Prof. Weisenburger after Max Harrison, but slightly different, and it is interesting because Parker directly mentions Cherokee: 'Well, that night, I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.' The quotation is taken from 'Hear Me Talkin' To Ya'."

==Page 65==

*V65.15 "Gobbler" Biddle 
The Biddles are one of the leading families of Philadelphia, who sometimes vacationed in the Berkshires.

V65.16 Fu’s Folly 
Although, as Weisenburger notes, the character is named for Fu Manchu (who is an important reference for Pointsman later in the novel), it should be recalled that there was also a "Fu" who was a member of the Whole Sick Crew in V.

V65.33 Jack Kennedy 
Contrary to Weisenburger, Kennedy’s first book was titled '''''Why''' England Slept'' (not "When").

==Page 68==

*V68.01 Half an Ark’s better than none. 
For Crutchfield, there is only '''one''' of everything, as opposed to two of every animal on Noah’s (whole) Ark. (And how much use is half an Ark in a flood, anyway?)

==Page 69==

*V69.14 a bandana of the regulation magenta and green 
The coal-tar colors of organic chemistry that resonate throughout the novel.

V69.16 Rancho Peligroso 
Evokes the Siege Perilous of the Arthurian Grail legend as well as ''Rancho Notorious'', a 1952 Western directed by Fritz Lang and starring Marlene Dietrich. See note at [[V321.06-07]]

==Page 63==
V71.11 kryptosam 
Correspondent Matthias Bauer notes that "sam" derives from the German "samen," for "seed." "Krypto," of course, derives from the same word as "cryptography," the study of codes. Weisenburger claims that the "tyrosine" from which kryptosam is supposed to derive is "undoubtedly fictional," but it is in fact an amino acid, which can convert to melanin, just as Jamf's note indicates (although it is unclear whether semen will in fact act as the catalytic agent).
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/tyrosine.html]

Pages 47-53

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==Page 48==

V48.25 " . . . one of Lazslo Jamf’s subjects . . . " 
The name "Jamf" apparently derives from an acronym used by Charlie Parker: "'''J'''ive-'''A'''ss '''M'''other-'''F'''ucker"!

==Page 51==

V51.31-32 the Ick Regis jetty 
The name is Pynchon’s but evokes "The Cobb," the famous jetty at the city of Lyme Regis on the southern coast of England.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/lyme.html]

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==Page 30==

V30.39 Jessica Swanlake 
Jessica’s last name, like other musical references in the novel, is suggestive. Like the heroine of the Tchaikovsky ballet, she finds true love and is transformed, but then is abducted back to her former state by an evil magician (in this case, Pointsman).

==Page 31==

V31.28 Carroll Eventyr 
As Weisenburger notes, "eventyr" is Danish for "adventure" but in the sense of a tale or story ("The Adventures of . . . "). It can signify "folk tales" or "fairy tales," as in Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The first name evokes '''Lewis''' Carroll but it also suggests the astrologer Carroll '''Righter''', whose face appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about growing interest in the occult on March 21, 1969. Righter, nicknamed "The Gregarious Aquarius," later would read charts for Ronald Reagan, among other celebrities. Also see the note at [[V742.29]].
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/righter.html]

==Page 33==

V33.26 Witchcraft Act 
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers this interesting elaboration on the reference:
"A few years ago, I came upon a short article in our daily newspaper ''Delo'', which could be interesting here. It says: 'The British spiritualists started a campaign to acquit Helen Duncan, sentenced as a witch during the World War II. She was sentenced as a consequence of a séance in 1942. She told she had seen in her trance a dead soldier wearing a cap with the inscription HMS Barham, who had told her: My ship was sunken. The news about this fact (the ship was supposedly sunken on 25 November 1942) was kept secret by the British government for two years, as Winston Churchill wrote in his diary. In 1944, Duncan was arrested since they were afraid that she would reveal also the date of the D-day. Her trial was based on the Witchcraft Act from 1735, and she was sentenced to nine months of prison. Argument: Helen Duncan pretends that she conjures the spirits of the dead.' It seems that Mexico refers to this case; the year and quotation from the Act correspond to the conviction of Helen Duncan." A web search using Helen Duncan's name will reveal several websites devoted to the "medium martyr."

==Page 36==

*V36.27-28 the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver 
"Beaver" is the nickname for Jessica’s other and more staid lover, Jeremy. The nickname derives from the ‘40s slang for the beard he sports. (For example, in the "home front" film ''Since You Went Away'' [1944], the bearded character played by Monty Woolley is referred to as "Beaver.") The word also is vulgar slang for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/wooley.html]

==Page 37==

V37.10-11 Fred Roper’s Company of Wonder Midgets 
This is apparently a real group, although I have no information on them except that a postcard exists captioned "Fred Roper and His Wonderful Midgets" with a tall man in a busby and military greatcoat and a troop of midgets in uniform under the heading "The Toy Soldier Parade." The website for The Princess Theatre Hunstanton (England) notes that the building opened as the Capitol Theatre in 1932. One of the first acts to play there was "Fred Roper and His 20 Wonder Midgets"!
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/roper.html]

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==Page 20==

V20.36 TDY 
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

==Page 21==

V21.07 A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now. 
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

V21.36 86’d
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

V22.04 Frick Frack Club 
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

V25.06-07 Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable 
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

==Page 26==

V26.30 back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts 
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

V26.33 British Double Summer Time 
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

V26.37-38 Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you. 
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

V27.04 Variable Slothrop 
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

V27.31-33 They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble. 
One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' (TBH), a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," Pynchon Notes 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/berkshire.html]

==Page 28==

V28.02-03 paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint 
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on (TBH 238). Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" (TBH 143).

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

==Page 29==

V29.04 Hogan 
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

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==Page 18==

V18.22-23 "Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland" 
Song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey, composed for the 1942 film Johnny Doughboy, starring Jane Withers and Henry Wilcoxon. Apparently a popular tune, it lasted 16 weeks on the 1942 Hit Parade and was recorded by Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo, among others.

V18.25 George Formby 
See note above at [[V9.05]]. Formby was extraordinarily popular in recordings and films in Britain in the 1940s. Weisenburger claims that Formby’s voice was a "high screech," but it was actually a not-unpleasant baritone. Weisenburger may be confusing Formby with the ukulele-strumming 1960s singing phenomenon Tiny Tim.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/formby.html]

*V18.30 the skin of a Flying Fortress 
Correspondent Stephen Remato adds the following comment: "While detailing the debris on Slothrop's desk, Mr. W. suggests that the bomb which explodes over Hiroshima was dropped from a Flying Fortress. While also made by the Boeing company, it was the B29 Super Fortress, not the B17 Flying Fortress, which was the atomic bomber of WW2. The well-known B29 'Enola Gay' dropped the Hiroshima bomb, while the lesser-known B29 'Bock's Car' dropped the Nagasaki bomb. To those unaware, the superficial similarity in name between these types of aircraft is the main similarity only; they are not variations of the same aircraft but quite distinct."

V18.38 a News of the World 
The NOTW was not merely a daily paper but a highly sensationalistic British weekly tabloid, with virtually no serious news (still being published). That "Slothrop is a faithful reader" says much about his intellectual pursuits. The paper's current website is at:
[http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk]

==Page 19==

V19.30 the pantechnicon 
Weisenburger gives this as "a bazaar in Victorian London," but a more fitting setting for Tantivy’s story of "Lorraine and Judy, Charles the homosexual constable and the piano" would be a warehouse or furniture van. See [[V537.16-17.]]
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/pantech.html]

Pages 7-16

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==Page 9==

9.03 Miss Grable 
Betty Grable actually became a pin-up favorite in '''1943''' (not 1944), when she had a photo series released. Although she had been featured in various films since the late 1920s, she first became a major box office attraction with the 1940 film Down Argentine Way. The poster is also an example of the motif of the turning head that recurs throughout Gravity’s Rainbow. Correspondent Hazen Bob Dixon notes that Grable was actually pregnant when the picture was taken, which is why her back was turned in the first place. The story is plausible, since Grable did give birth to a daughter (by her husband, band leader Harry James) in March 1944; however, there are other versions of how the image came to be taken.

9.05 Civvie Street 
In other words, Peacetime, when military personnel will again wear civilian clothes ("civvies"). George Formby had a postwar film titled George in Civvy Street (1946). See note at V18.25.

V9.29 Jungfrau 
Correspondent Igor Zabel notes that the name of the famous mountain actually means "Virgin." Matthias Bauer adds:
"The name of the mountain means ''virgin`` in 20th century German. Translated from Kluge ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache``, 23th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1999: ''originally meaning young lady, later generalized to young (unmarried) woman. Mysticism used the word for the Virgin Mary, and the meaning shifted towards young (virgin) woman."

*V9.14-19 Bartley Gobbitch, DeCoverley Pox . . . SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy Bloat 
"Gobbitch" comes from the archaic word "gobbet," which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as "a fragment or bit, especially of raw flesh." The names "Pox" and "Bloat" are obvious enough, but "DeCoverley" comes from Sir Roger Decoverley, the prototypical country squire created by Addison and Steele for the Spectator and named in turn for a country reel dance. Overall, the names suggest another version of the "Whole Sick Crew" of Pynchon’s V. "Snipe" (backbite, take potshots) and "shaft" (undercut, screw over) are what these men are presumably assigned to do to others in their various bureaucratic jobs and what they do in conversations at the eponymous pub.

==Page 11==

V11.25 his batman, a Corporal Wayne 
Weisenburger correctly defines "batman" (an aide assigned to a British officer) but misses Pynchon’s joke: Any "batman" with the last name of "Wayne" must have the first name "Bruce"! (Alfred Appel in Nabokov’s Dark Cinema also missed the joke, claiming that Pynchon was poking fun at John Wayne by demoting him to a "mere" corporal!)
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/batman.html]

==Page 13==

V13.20 during his Kipling period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies 
Contrary to Weisenburger, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies were actually the Sudanese natives fighting '''against''' (not conscripted for) the British. Here, Pirate is thinking not of the novels of the arch-apologist for Empire but of such Kipling poems as "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" in which a British soldier declares his grudging admiration for the natives’ fighting spirit.

V13.34 No Cary Grant . . . medicine in the punchbowls 
The reference here is not to the anachronistic Howard Hawks film Monkey Business but to George Stevens’ Gunga Din, the 1939 film loosely inspired by Kipling’s famous poem. Grant and his compatriots (Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) do indeed "lark about" through India, spiking the company punch with elephant medicine and engaging in other pranks. See Weisenburger's note at V684.31-35.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/gungad.html]

==Page 14==

*V14.07 H.A. Loaf 
As in "Half a loaf is better than none"?

V14.30-31 It was a giant Adenoid! 
Correspondent Erik Johnson adds the following in relation to the references to the Adenoid here and at 754.38:
"An adenoid is an enlarged mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the pharynx characteristically obstructing breathing--usually used in plural. I believe it's likely that Pynchon is also making reference to 'Adenoid Hynkel,' the character of the dictator (and mockery of Hitler) played by Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator.

*V14.34 Lord Blatherard Osmo 
To "blather" is to talk on foolishly (the reason for his mysterious death?). "Osmo" suggests "osmosis," the process by which the giant Adenoid would absorb its victims.

*V14.04 Redcaps 
Web correspondent Stephen Remato comments: " . . . Those serving in the British Army use the term to refer to the Military Police (in the American parlance 'snowdrops' in reference to the white helmets and gaiters); the term 'red caps' refers to the red band around the standard British Army officer's cap, what one might call the headband, which is usually khaki, with the exception of the red of the MPs. This makes much more sense in context, when the ownership of a narcotic cigarette is under scrutiny; why would one care if any Sudanese troops discovered this secret?"
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/redcap.html]

Pages 3-7

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==Page 3==

'''second sheep''' 

V3.14
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 V[[555.29-31]].

'''Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice''' 

==Page 4==

 
==Page 5==
5.03 His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice. 
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.")

 

==Page 6==

V6.09 a spiral ladder 
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at V10.14.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/dna.html]

Pages 53-60

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==Page 59==

V59.01-02 Frank Bridge Variations 
The "Frank Bridge Variations" is a composition ("Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge," Opus 10, 1937) by Benjamin Britten, named after one of his teachers. It was one of Britten's first works to win international notice.

Pages 47-53

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==Page 48==

V48.25 " . . . one of Lazslo Jamf’s subjects . . . " 
The name "Jamf" apparently derives from an acronym used by Charlie Parker: "'''J'''ive-'''A'''ss '''M'''other-'''F'''ucker"!

==Page 51==

V51.31-32 the Ick Regis jetty 
The name is Pynchon’s but evokes "The Cobb," the famous jetty at the city of Lyme Regis on the southern coast of England.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/lyme.html]

Pages 20-29

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==Page 20==

V20.36 TDY 
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

==Page 21==

V21.07 A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now. 
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

V21.36 86’d
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

V22.04 Frick Frack Club 
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

V25.06-07 Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable 
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

==Page 26==

V26.30 back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts 
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

V26.33 British Double Summer Time 
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

V26.37-38 Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you. 
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

V27.04 Variable Slothrop 
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

V27.31-33 They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble. 
One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' (TBH), a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," Pynchon Notes 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/berkshire.html]

==Page 28==

V28.02-03 paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint 
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on (TBH 238). Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" (TBH 143).

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

==Page 29==

V29.04 Hogan 
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

Pages 20-29

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==Page 20==

V20.36 TDY
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

==Page 21==

V21.07 A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

V21.36 86’d
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

==Page 22==

V22.04 Frick Frack Club
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

==Page 25==

V25.06-07 Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

==Page 26==

V26.30 back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

V26.33 British Double Summer Time
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

V26.37-38 Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

==Page 27==

V27.04 Variable Slothrop
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

V27.31-33 They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.
One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' (TBH), a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," Pynchon Notes 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/berkshire.html]

==Page 28==

V28.02-03 paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on (TBH 238). Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" (TBH 143).

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

==Page 29==

V29.04 Hogan
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

Pages 17-19

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==Page 18==

V18.22-23 "Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland" 
Song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey, composed for the 1942 film Johnny Doughboy, starring Jane Withers and Henry Wilcoxon. Apparently a popular tune, it lasted 16 weeks on the 1942 Hit Parade and was recorded by Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo, among others.

V18.25 George Formby 
See note above at [[V9.05]]. Formby was extraordinarily popular in recordings and films in Britain in the 1940s. Weisenburger claims that Formby’s voice was a "high screech," but it was actually a not-unpleasant baritone. Weisenburger may be confusing Formby with the ukulele-strumming 1960s singing phenomenon Tiny Tim.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/formby.html]

*V18.30 the skin of a Flying Fortress 
Correspondent Stephen Remato adds the following comment: "While detailing the debris on Slothrop's desk, Mr. W. suggests that the bomb which explodes over Hiroshima was dropped from a Flying Fortress. While also made by the Boeing company, it was the B29 Super Fortress, not the B17 Flying Fortress, which was the atomic bomber of WW2. The well-known B29 'Enola Gay' dropped the Hiroshima bomb, while the lesser-known B29 'Bock's Car' dropped the Nagasaki bomb. To those unaware, the superficial similarity in name between these types of aircraft is the main similarity only; they are not variations of the same aircraft but quite distinct."

V18.38 a News of the World 
The NOTW was not merely a daily paper but a highly sensationalistic British weekly tabloid, with virtually no serious news (still being published). That "Slothrop is a faithful reader" says much about his intellectual pursuits. The paper's current website is at:
[http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk]

==Page 19==

V19.30 the pantechnicon 
Weisenburger gives this as "a bazaar in Victorian London," but a more fitting setting for Tantivy’s story of "Lorraine and Judy, Charles the homosexual constable and the piano" would be a warehouse or furniture van. See [[V537.16-17.]]
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/pantech.html]

Pages 7-16

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==Page 9==

9.03 Miss Grable 
Betty Grable actually became a pin-up favorite in '''1943''' (not 1944), when she had a photo series released. Although she had been featured in various films since the late 1920s, she first became a major box office attraction with the 1940 film Down Argentine Way. The poster is also an example of the motif of the turning head that recurs throughout Gravity’s Rainbow. Correspondent Hazen Bob Dixon notes that Grable was actually pregnant when the picture was taken, which is why her back was turned in the first place. The story is plausible, since Grable did give birth to a daughter (by her husband, band leader Harry James) in March 1944; however, there are other versions of how the image came to be taken.

9.05 Civvie Street 
In other words, Peacetime, when military personnel will again wear civilian clothes ("civvies"). George Formby had a postwar film titled George in Civvy Street (1946). See note at V18.25.

V9.29 Jungfrau 
Correspondent Igor Zabel notes that the name of the famous mountain actually means "Virgin." Matthias Bauer adds:
"The name of the mountain means ''virgin`` in 20th century German. Translated from Kluge ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache``, 23th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1999: ''originally meaning young lady, later generalized to young (unmarried) woman. Mysticism used the word for the Virgin Mary, and the meaning shifted towards young (virgin) woman."

*V9.14-19 Bartley Gobbitch, DeCoverley Pox . . . SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy Bloat 
"Gobbitch" comes from the archaic word "gobbet," which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as "a fragment or bit, especially of raw flesh." The names "Pox" and "Bloat" are obvious enough, but "DeCoverley" comes from Sir Roger Decoverley, the prototypical country squire created by Addison and Steele for the Spectator and named in turn for a country reel dance. Overall, the names suggest another version of the "Whole Sick Crew" of Pynchon’s V. "Snipe" (backbite, take potshots) and "shaft" (undercut, screw over) are what these men are presumably assigned to do to others in their various bureaucratic jobs and what they do in conversations at the eponymous pub.

==Page 11==

V11.25 his batman, a Corporal Wayne 
Weisenburger correctly defines "batman" (an aide assigned to a British officer) but misses Pynchon’s joke: Any "batman" with the last name of "Wayne" must have the first name "Bruce"! (Alfred Appel in Nabokov’s Dark Cinema also missed the joke, claiming that Pynchon was poking fun at John Wayne by demoting him to a "mere" corporal!)
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/batman.html]

==Page 13==

V13.20 during his Kipling period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies 
Contrary to Weisenburger, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies were actually the Sudanese natives fighting '''against''' (not conscripted for) the British. Here, Pirate is thinking not of the novels of the arch-apologist for Empire but of such Kipling poems as "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" in which a British soldier declares his grudging admiration for the natives’ fighting spirit.

V13.34 No Cary Grant . . . medicine in the punchbowls 
The reference here is not to the anachronistic Howard Hawks film Monkey Business but to George Stevens’ Gunga Din, the 1939 film loosely inspired by Kipling’s famous poem. Grant and his compatriots (Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) do indeed "lark about" through India, spiking the company punch with elephant medicine and engaging in other pranks. See Weisenburger's note at V684.31-35.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/gungad.html]

==Page 14==

*V14.07 H.A. Loaf 
As in "Half a loaf is better than none"?

V14.30-31 It was a giant Adenoid! 
Correspondent Erik Johnson adds the following in relation to the references to the Adenoid here and at 754.38:
"An adenoid is an enlarged mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the pharynx characteristically obstructing breathing--usually used in plural. I believe it's likely that Pynchon is also making reference to 'Adenoid Hynkel,' the character of the dictator (and mockery of Hitler) played by Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator.

*V14.34 Lord Blatherard Osmo 
To "blather" is to talk on foolishly (the reason for his mysterious death?). "Osmo" suggests "osmosis," the process by which the giant Adenoid would absorb its victims.

*V14.04 Redcaps 
Web correspondent Stephen Remato comments: " . . . Those serving in the British Army use the term to refer to the Military Police (in the American parlance 'snowdrops' in reference to the white helmets and gaiters); the term 'red caps' refers to the red band around the standard British Army officer's cap, what one might call the headband, which is usually khaki, with the exception of the red of the MPs. This makes much more sense in context, when the ownership of a narcotic cigarette is under scrutiny; why would one care if any Sudanese troops discovered this secret?"
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/redcap.html]

Pages 3-7

2006-12-30T02:20:49Z

Pynchonoid:

==Page 3==

'''second sheep''' 

V3.14
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 V[[555.29-31]].

'''Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice''' 

==Page 4==

 
==Page 5==
5.03 His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice. 
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.")

 

==Page 6==

V6.09 a spiral ladder 
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at V10.14.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/dna.html]

Pages 72-83

2006-12-30T02:15:55Z

Pynchonoid:

*V75.30 Dr. Porkyevitch
Another suggestion of one of Pynchon’s favorite motifs, the little cartoon hero Porky Pig. See note at [[V545.04-05]]

V78.12 Cecil Beaton’s photograph of Margot Asquith
Another example of the Turning Head motif.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/asquith.html]

*V79.13 Webley Silvernail
Webley is the name of the British gun manufacturer. ''The Berkshire Hills'' cites Silvernail House in West Stockbridge as one of the oldest houses in that town (TBH 99).

V79.18 Geza Rozsavolgyi
Geza’s first name also suggests the Hungarian-American psychologist Geza Roheim, who was one of the first to employ psychoanalytic critiques of culture. Rozsavolgyi is the name of a famous Budapest music store founded in 1850, which also published works by Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly, among others.

V80.21-22 "Would You Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder, or a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee?"
The World War I song was composed by the team of Sidney Mitchell and Archie Gottlieb in 1918. ('''Note''': This is a correction of my earlier error in attributing the song to the team of Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg, who also composed the songs for ''The Wizard of Oz''.)

V81.17 The Reverend Paul de la Nuit
A double pun: "Pall [dark and gloomy covering] of the night"; also "Pall de l’ennui [of boredom]."

V82.01 his most famous compatriot
Rozsavolgyi’s fellow countryman would be, of course, Bela Lugosi, whose speech patterns are suggested by Pynchon’s punctuation of Rozsavolgyi’s dialogue.

V82.11 Dr. Aaron Thowster
Aaron was the brother of and spokesperson for Moses. A throwster is one who makes threads out of silk. The name is fairly common in Britain.

Pages 60-71

2006-12-30T01:14:46Z

Pynchonoid:

V63.32-37 "Yardbird" Parker is finding out [ . . . ]
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers the following addition to Weisenberger's note on this passage:
"On one of Parker's CDs (Swedish Schnapps +), I found the passage which was quoted by Prof. Weisenburger after Max Harrison, but slightly different, and it is interesting because Parker directly mentions Cherokee: 'Well, that night, I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.' The quotation is taken from 'Hear Me Talkin' To Ya'."

*V65.15 "Gobbler" Biddle
The Biddles are one of the leading families of Philadelphia, who sometimes vacationed in the Berkshires.

V65.16 Fu’s Folly
Although, as Weisenburger notes, the character is named for Fu Manchu (who is an important reference for Pointsman later in the novel), it should be recalled that there was also a "Fu" who was a member of the Whole Sick Crew in V.

V65.33 Jack Kennedy
Contrary to Weisenburger, Kennedy’s first book was titled '''''Why''' England Slept'' (not "When").

*V68.01 Half an Ark’s better than none.
For Crutchfield, there is only '''one''' of everything, as opposed to two of every animal on Noah’s (whole) Ark. (And how much use is half an Ark in a flood, anyway?)

*V69.14 a bandana of the regulation magenta and green
The coal-tar colors of organic chemistry that resonate throughout the novel.

V69.16 Rancho Peligroso
Evokes the Siege Perilous of the Arthurian Grail legend as well as ''Rancho Notorious'', a 1952 Western directed by Fritz Lang and starring Marlene Dietrich. See note at [[V321.06-07]]

V1.11 kryptosam
Correspondent Matthias Bauer notes that "sam" derives from the German "samen," for "seed." "Krypto," of course, derives from the same word as "cryptography," the study of codes. Weisenburger claims that the "tyrosine" from which kryptosam is supposed to derive is "undoubtedly fictional," but it is in fact an amino acid, which can convert to melanin, just as Jamf's note indicates (although it is unclear whether semen will in fact act as the catalytic agent).
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/tyrosine.html]

Pages 60-71

2006-12-30T01:12:25Z

Pynchonoid:

Pages 53-60

2006-12-30T01:09:27Z

Pynchonoid:

V59.01-02 Frank Bridge Variations
The "Frank Bridge Variations" is a composition ("Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge," Opus 10, 1937) by Benjamin Britten, named after one of his teachers. It was one of Britten's first works to win international notice.

Pages 47-53

2006-12-30T01:08:35Z

Pynchonoid:

V48.25 " . . . one of Lazslo Jamf’s subjects . . . "
The name "Jamf" apparently derives from an acronym used by Charlie Parker: "'''J'''ive-'''A'''ss '''M'''other-'''F'''ucker"!

V51.31-32 the Ick Regis jetty
The name is Pynchon’s but evokes "The Cobb," the famous jetty at the city of Lyme Regis on the southern coast of England.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/lyme.html]

Pages 29-37

2006-12-30T01:06:45Z

Pynchonoid:

V30.39 Jessica Swanlake
Jessica’s last name, like other musical references in the novel, is suggestive. Like the heroine of the Tchaikovsky ballet, she finds true love and is transformed, but then is abducted back to her former state by an evil magician (in this case, Pointsman).

V31.28 Carroll Eventyr
As Weisenburger notes, "eventyr" is Danish for "adventure" but in the sense of a tale or story ("The Adventures of . . . "). It can signify "folk tales" or "fairy tales," as in Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The first name evokes '''Lewis''' Carroll but it also suggests the astrologer Carroll '''Righter''', whose face appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about growing interest in the occult on March 21, 1969. Righter, nicknamed "The Gregarious Aquarius," later would read charts for Ronald Reagan, among other celebrities. Also see the note at [[V742.29]].
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/righter.html]

V33.26 Witchcraft Act
Correspondent Igor Zabel offers this interesting elaboration on the reference:
"A few years ago, I came upon a short article in our daily newspaper ''Delo'', which could be interesting here. It says: 'The British spiritualists started a campaign to acquit Helen Duncan, sentenced as a witch during the World War II. She was sentenced as a consequence of a séance in 1942. She told she had seen in her trance a dead soldier wearing a cap with the inscription HMS Barham, who had told her: My ship was sunken. The news about this fact (the ship was supposedly sunken on 25 November 1942) was kept secret by the British government for two years, as Winston Churchill wrote in his diary. In 1944, Duncan was arrested since they were afraid that she would reveal also the date of the D-day. Her trial was based on the Witchcraft Act from 1735, and she was sentenced to nine months of prison. Argument: Helen Duncan pretends that she conjures the spirits of the dead.' It seems that Mexico refers to this case; the year and quotation from the Act correspond to the conviction of Helen Duncan." A web search using Helen Duncan's name will reveal several websites devoted to the "medium martyr."

*V36.27-28 the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver
"Beaver" is the nickname for Jessica’s other and more staid lover, Jeremy. The nickname derives from the ‘40s slang for the beard he sports. (For example, in the "home front" film ''Since You Went Away'' [1944], the bearded character played by Monty Woolley is referred to as "Beaver.") The word also is vulgar slang for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/wooley.html]

V37.10-11 Fred Roper’s Company of Wonder Midgets
This is apparently a real group, although I have no information on them except that a postcard exists captioned "Fred Roper and His Wonderful Midgets" with a tall man in a busby and military greatcoat and a troop of midgets in uniform under the heading "The Toy Soldier Parade." The website for The Princess Theatre Hunstanton (England) notes that the building opened as the Capitol Theatre in 1932. One of the first acts to play there was "Fred Roper and His 20 Wonder Midgets"!
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/roper.html]

Pages 20-29

2006-12-30T01:00:33Z

Pynchonoid:

V20.36 TDY
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

V21.07 A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

V21.36 86’d
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

V22.04 Frick Frack Club
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

V25.06-07 Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory ''The Pilgrim’s Progress''. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

V26.30 back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

V26.33 British Double Summer Time
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

V26.37-38 Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

V27.04 Variable Slothrop
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

V27.31-33 They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.
One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is ''The Berkshire Hills'' (TBH), a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to ''Slow Learner''.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of ''Gravity’s Rainbow''. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," Pynchon Notes 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/berkshire.html]

V28.02-03 paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on (TBH 238). Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" (TBH 143).

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

V29.04 Hogan
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

Pages 20-29

2006-12-30T00:57:53Z

Pynchonoid:

V20.36 TDY
Not "tour of duty," as in Weisenburger, but "temporary duty."

V21.07 A lot of stuff prior to 1941 is getting blurry now.
Even this early in the novel, Slothrop has problems with his "temporal bandwidth."

V21.36 86’d
While sources do agree with Weisenburger that the term "86" might originate in rhyming slang (for "nix"), they also agree that it was first used in the restaurant business to indicate menu items that were no available. The wider usage here may not have originated until the 1950s.

V22.04 Frick Frack Club
The term "frick and frack" is often used to designate two people or almost any two items closely associated with each other. The term originates from the stage names of a pair of Swiss skaters who starred in ice shows in the 1930s. Pynchon probably chose the name more for its senseless alliteration (like "Kit-Kat Club") than any specific meaning.

V25.06-07 Slothrop’s Progress . . . a parable
"Slothrop’s Progress" echoes John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. The word "parable," interestingly, comes from the same root as "parabola."

V26.30 back home in Mingeborough, Massachusetts
The Berkshire town was first created by Pynchon in the short story "The Secret Integration," set in the mid-1960s. This story also introduced the Slothrop family, in the person of Hogan Slothrop, who is apparently the son of Tyrone’s brother. Minges (or "midges") are small, biting insects. However, "minge" is also a British slang term for a woman's genitals.

V26.33 British Double Summer Time
Correspondent Igor Zabel explains this term:
" . . . in Britain they had, during the war, the clocks an hour ahead in the winter time and two hours in the summer time."

V26.37-38 Death is a debt to nature due . . . so must you.
Weisenburger claims that this epitaph, with its debt to "nature" rather than God, would be heretical to Puritans. That might be so, but the inscription was fairly common on tombstones in the northeast from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s, a range that includes Constant’s 1760 death.

V27.04 Variable Slothrop
The son of "Constant": The two names play a mathematical pun and suggest the family’s decline as well.

V27.31-33 They began as fur traders, cordwainers, salters and smokers of bacon, went on into glassmaking, became selectmen, builders of tanneries, quarriers of marble.
One source listed in Weisenburger but that he did not have time to consult closely is The Berkshire Hills (TBH), a guidebook prepared for this western Massachusetts region by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression. (See Pynchon’s comments in his introduction to Slow Learner.) Although not the sole source, the book provides important background for "The Secret Integration" and the Berkshire segments of Gravity’s Rainbow. Most of the offices and trades listed here (except for "smokers and salters of bacon") are noted at one place or another in the guidebook. Also see my article "From the Berkshires to the Brocken: Transformations of a Source in "The Secret Integration" and Gravity’s Rainbow," Pynchon Notes 22-23 (Spring-Fall 1988): 87-98.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/berkshire.html]

V28.02-03 paper—toilet paper, banknote stock, newsprint
The Berkshire Hills describes several paper mills in the region and notes the importance of the industry. One producer, Crane and Company, first used the term "bond" for high-quality paper and provided special paper for U.S. currency from 1879 on (TBH 238). Another company, in the town of Lee, gave the "first practical demonstration in America of the process of manufacturing paper from wood pulp instead of rags" (TBH 143).

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

V29.04 Hogan
Tyrone Slothrop’s brother, presumably the father of the Hogan Slothrop of "The Secret Integration," set in the Berkshires a generation later.

Pages 17-19

2006-12-30T00:52:55Z

Pynchonoid:

V18.22-23 "Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland"
Song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey, composed for the 1942 film Johnny Doughboy, starring Jane Withers and Henry Wilcoxon. Apparently a popular tune, it lasted 16 weeks on the 1942 Hit Parade and was recorded by Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo, among others.

V18.25 George Formby
See note above at [[V9.05]]. Formby was extraordinarily popular in recordings and films in Britain in the 1940s. Weisenburger claims that Formby’s voice was a "high screech," but it was actually a not-unpleasant baritone. Weisenburger may be confusing Formby with the ukulele-strumming 1960s singing phenomenon Tiny Tim.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/formby.html]

*V18.30 the skin of a Flying Fortress
Correspondent Stephen Remato adds the following comment: "While detailing the debris on Slothrop's desk, Mr. W. suggests that the bomb which explodes over Hiroshima was dropped from a Flying Fortress. While also made by the Boeing company, it was the B29 Super Fortress, not the B17 Flying Fortress, which was the atomic bomber of WW2. The well-known B29 'Enola Gay' dropped the Hiroshima bomb, while the lesser-known B29 'Bock's Car' dropped the Nagasaki bomb. To those unaware, the superficial similarity in name between these types of aircraft is the main similarity only; they are not variations of the same aircraft but quite distinct."

V18.38 a News of the World
The NOTW was not merely a daily paper but a highly sensationalistic British weekly tabloid, with virtually no serious news (still being published). That "Slothrop is a faithful reader" says much about his intellectual pursuits. The paper's current website is at:
[http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk]

V19.30 the pantechnicon
Weisenburger gives this as "a bazaar in Victorian London," but a more fitting setting for Tantivy’s story of "Lorraine and Judy, Charles the homosexual constable and the piano" would be a warehouse or furniture van. See [[V537.16-17.]]
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/pantech.html]

Pages 17-19

2006-12-30T00:46:43Z

Pynchonoid:

V18.22-23 "Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland"
Song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey, composed for the 1942 film Johnny Doughboy, starring Jane Withers and Henry Wilcoxon. Apparently a popular tune, it lasted 16 weeks on the 1942 Hit Parade and was recorded by Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo, among others.

V18.25 George Formby
See note above at [[V9.05]]. Formby was extraordinarily popular in recordings and films in Britain in the 1940s. Weisenburger claims that Formby’s voice was a "high screech," but it was actually a not-unpleasant baritone. Weisenburger may be confusing Formby with the ukulele-strumming 1960s singing phenomenon Tiny Tim.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/formby.html]

*V18.30 the skin of a Flying Fortress
Correspondent Stephen Remato adds the following comment: "While detailing the debris on Slothrop's desk, Mr. W. suggests that the bomb which explodes over Hiroshima was dropped from a Flying Fortress. While also made by the Boeing company, it was the B29 Super Fortress, not the B17 Flying Fortress, which was the atomic bomber of WW2. The well-known B29 'Enola Gay' dropped the Hiroshima bomb, while the lesser-known B29 'Bock's Car' dropped the Nagasaki bomb. To those unaware, the superficial similarity in name between these types of aircraft is the main similarity only; they are not variations of the same aircraft but quite distinct."

V18.38 a News of the World
The NOTW was not merely a daily paper but a highly sensationalistic British weekly tabloid, with virtually no serious news (still being published). That "Slothrop is a faithful reader" says much about his intellectual pursuits. The paper's current website is at:
[http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk]

V19.30 the pantechnicon
Weisenburger gives this as "a bazaar in Victorian London," but a more fitting setting for Tantivy’s story of "Lorraine and Judy, Charles the homosexual constable and the piano" would be a warehouse or furniture van. See V537.16-17.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/pantech.html]

Pages 7-16

2006-12-30T00:44:25Z

Pynchonoid:

9.03 Miss Grable
Betty Grable actually became a pin-up favorite in '''1943''' (not 1944), when she had a photo series released. Although she had been featured in various films since the late 1920s, she first became a major box office attraction with the 1940 film Down Argentine Way. The poster is also an example of the motif of the turning head that recurs throughout Gravity’s Rainbow. Correspondent Hazen Bob Dixon notes that Grable was actually pregnant when the picture was taken, which is why her back was turned in the first place. The story is plausible, since Grable did give birth to a daughter (by her husband, band leader Harry James) in March 1944; however, there are other versions of how the image came to be taken.

9.05 Civvie Street
In other words, Peacetime, when military personnel will again wear civilian clothes ("civvies"). George Formby had a postwar film titled George in Civvy Street (1946). See note at V18.25.

V9.29 Jungfrau
Correspondent Igor Zabel notes that the name of the famous mountain actually means "Virgin." Matthias Bauer adds:
"The name of the mountain means ''virgin`` in 20th century German. Translated from Kluge ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache``, 23th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1999: ''originally meaning young lady, later generalized to young (unmarried) woman. Mysticism used the word for the Virgin Mary, and the meaning shifted towards young (virgin) woman."

*V9.14-19 Bartley Gobbitch, DeCoverley Pox . . . SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy Bloat
"Gobbitch" comes from the archaic word "gobbet," which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as "a fragment or bit, especially of raw flesh." The names "Pox" and "Bloat" are obvious enough, but "DeCoverley" comes from Sir Roger Decoverley, the prototypical country squire created by Addison and Steele for the Spectator and named in turn for a country reel dance. Overall, the names suggest another version of the "Whole Sick Crew" of Pynchon’s V. "Snipe" (backbite, take potshots) and "shaft" (undercut, screw over) are what these men are presumably assigned to do to others in their various bureaucratic jobs and what they do in conversations at the eponymous pub.

V11.25 his batman, a Corporal Wayne
Weisenburger correctly defines "batman" (an aide assigned to a British officer) but misses Pynchon’s joke: Any "batman" with the last name of "Wayne" must have the first name "Bruce"! (Alfred Appel in Nabokov’s Dark Cinema also missed the joke, claiming that Pynchon was poking fun at John Wayne by demoting him to a "mere" corporal!)
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/batman.html]

V13.20 during his Kipling period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies
Contrary to Weisenburger, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies were actually the Sudanese natives fighting '''against''' (not conscripted for) the British. Here, Pirate is thinking not of the novels of the arch-apologist for Empire but of such Kipling poems as "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" in which a British soldier declares his grudging admiration for the natives’ fighting spirit.

V13.34 No Cary Grant . . . medicine in the punchbowls
The reference here is not to the anachronistic Howard Hawks film Monkey Business but to George Stevens’ Gunga Din, the 1939 film loosely inspired by Kipling’s famous poem. Grant and his compatriots (Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) do indeed "lark about" through India, spiking the company punch with elephant medicine and engaging in other pranks. See Weisenburger's note at V684.31-35.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/gungad.html]

*V14.07 H.A. Loaf
As in "Half a loaf is better than none"?

V14.30-31 It was a giant Adenoid!
Correspondent Erik Johnson adds the following in relation to the references to the Adenoid here and at 754.38:
"An adenoid is an enlarged mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the pharynx characteristically obstructing breathing--usually used in plural. I believe it's likely that Pynchon is also making reference to 'Adenoid Hynkel,' the character of the dictator (and mockery of Hitler) played by Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator.

*V14.34 Lord Blatherard Osmo
To "blather" is to talk on foolishly (the reason for his mysterious death?). "Osmo" suggests "osmosis," the process by which the giant Adenoid would absorb its victims.

*V14.04 Redcaps
Web correspondent Stephen Remato comments: " . . . Those serving in the British Army use the term to refer to the Military Police (in the American parlance 'snowdrops' in reference to the white helmets and gaiters); the term 'red caps' refers to the red band around the standard British Army officer's cap, what one might call the headband, which is usually khaki, with the exception of the red of the MPs. This makes much more sense in context, when the ownership of a narcotic cigarette is under scrutiny; why would one care if any Sudanese troops discovered this secret?"
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/redcap.html]

Pages 3-7

2006-12-30T00:40:25Z

Pynchonoid:

'''second sheep'''

V3.14
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 V[[555.29-31]].

'''Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice'''

5.03 His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.
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.")

V6.09 a spiral ladder
Suggests the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule that preserves the "living genetic chains" evoked at V10.14.
[http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/companions%20companion/dna.html]

Pages 3-7

2006-12-30T00:37:03Z

Pynchonoid:

'''second sheep'''

V3.14
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 V555.29-31.

'''Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice'''

5.03 His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice.
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.")

Pages 3-7

2006-12-30T00:35:27Z

Pynchonoid:

Pages 3-7

2006-12-30T00:34:54Z

Pynchonoid:

second sheep

V3.14
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 V555.29-31.

Pages 3-7

2006-12-30T00:32:31Z

Pynchonoid: added Companion's Companion note

*V3.14 second sheep
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 V555.29-31.

D

2006-12-06T04:19:41Z

Pynchonoid:

'''dacoits''' 
644; The Dacoits were Burmese guerrillas who fled to the hills and jungle after the overthrow of Burma in 1886, and waged a desultory campaign against the British for several years.

'''Daedalus''' 
Daedalus was the great craftsman of Greek mythology. He built the labyrinth for Minos on Crete and because he may have helped Theseus escape from the maze, he was imprisoned in it with his son Icarus. He fashioned wings out of wax for himself and his son and, as we all know, Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he fell to his death. Daedalus escaped to Italy and then Sicily; "the gift of Daedalus that allowed Pökler to put as much labyrinth as required between himself and the inconveniences of caring" 428

'''D'Allesandro, Danny''' 
584; a pinball wizard, one of "the great thumbs of Koekuk and Puyallup, Oyster Bay, Inglewood"

'''dancing-shoe wars''' 
57;

'''Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)''' 
350; Florentine poet, most famous for Divina Commedia (1307) which is an encyclopedic narrative which tells in poetry Dante's journey through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil and to Paradise guided by Beatrice; "They are without a touch of Dante to Their notions of reprisal"

'''d'Annunzio, Gabriele (1863-1938)''' 
"Doomed as d'Annunzio's adventure at Fiume" 478; D'Annunzio was an Italian poet, adventurer and political leader; a fierce patriot, he was a strong supporter of the Fascist party under Mussolini; [More about Fiume]

'''Dan''' 
752; "The Lone Ranger will [...] find his young friend, innocent Dan, swinging from a tree limb by a broken neck"

'''Dan Wall's Chili House''' 
63; where Charlie Parker is playing, in Harlem

'''Darlene''' 
19; nurse at St. Veronica's hospital and lover of Slothrop; 114; 271

'''Darnley, Jill''' 
381; competing for Miss Rheingold 1946

'''Dawes-era''' 
74; Charles Dawes (1865-1951) was the vice-president under Coolidge from 1925-29. He headed the commission that drew up the "Dawes plan" setting out German reparation payments in 1924

'''D-Day''' 
577; "when I heard General Eisenhower on the radio announcing the invasion of Normandy";

'''DEATH''' 
See also angels; Empty Ones; Kollwitz, Käthe; [Discussion of WHO DIES in GR]; [Carl Jung]

'''Degenkolb''' 
448; "heading up the Rocket Committee by then"

'''Degrelle, Léon (1906-94)''' 
Founder and leader of the Rexist Party of Belgium, who collaborated with the Germans during World War II. After Belgium was liberated in September 1944, Degrelle was sentenced in absentia to death as a collaborator. He fled to Spain and became a citizen; Louis Borgesius heard him tell the crowd "that they must let themselves be swept away by the flood, they must act, act, and let the rest take care of itself" 544

'''de la Nuit, Rev. Dr. Paul''' 
56; French: de la nuit = "of the night"; house chaplain at White Visitation; 81; 143; "staff automatist" 146; 149

'''de la Perlimpinpin, Georges ("Poudre")''' 
243; "the Limoges fireworks magnate" and father (?) of Raoul

'''de la Perlimpinpin, Raoul''' 
243; throws big party where hollandaise is spiked with hashish & Italo & Tamara have it out with tanks; 463

'''delta-q''' 
647; a quality increment

'''delta-t''' 
An increment of time represented spacially, as on a graph; "Interest from various numbered trusts was still turned [...] in long rallentando, in infinite series just perceptibly, term by term, bying ... never quite to the zero" 28; "the explosion over his head always just about to come" 58; "60 miles up the rockets hanging the measureless instant over the black North Sea" 135; "Our history is an aggregate of last moments" 149; Leni applying it to being in the moment, 159; "The moving vehicle is frozen, in space, to become architecture, and timeless. It was never launched. It will never fall." 301; "a point in space, a point hung precise as the point where burning must end, never launched, never to fall" 302; "corroded Hansel in perpetual arrest" 398; "half-timbered houses, stepped out story by story, about to meet overhead after centuries of imperceptible toppling" 493; "words. . .only delta-t from the things they stand for" 510 (and 100); "nearly about to burn through the last whispering veil" 518; "stairsteps of range and height, delta-x and delta-y, allowing them to grow smaller and smaller, approaching zero [...] frame by frame, delta-x by delta-y, flightless themselves" 567; "the delta-x's and delta-y's of his drifter's spirit" 572; delta-q, 647; rate of change at a cusp, 664; "the delta-t itself" 754; "last thin pages of fluttering closed" 759; "the last delta-t" 760

'''de Mallakastra, Baron''' 
463; passenger on the Anubis

'''de Mérode, Cléo''' 
232; early 20th century dancer; was the mistress of Leopold II of Belgium

'''Demian-metaphysics''' 
403; German novelist Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), experiencing a crisis of the spirit, had psychoanalysis with J.B. Lang, a disciple of Carl Gustav Jung. His novel Demian (1919), which shows the influence of analysis, is about the character Demian (a classic "seeker") and his quest for self-awareness. Published during the troubled Weimar years, the novel was very popular and had a pervasive influence on the Germans. It also made Hesse famous.

'''Denham, Carl''' 
689; director of "King Kong"

'''Denmark''' 
398; "or did you kneel up in the seat, looking over the water, trying to see Denmark?"; "...your new home!' Gray and green, through the mist..." 421; "hooded face of sorrowing Denmark, leaning out over Germany" 484; "off the coast of Denmark" (Frau Gnahb insulting a stone), 497; "If it's Copenhagen she's bound for" 527; "a ghostly crowd of late dandelions waiting for the luminous wind that will break them toward the sea, over to Denmark" 560; "and get over to that Denmark" 623; "crumbs of a pineapple Danish, whorls of an Aetheric Danish" 696; [Thanks to Douglas Kløvedal Lannark for this Denmark listing]

'''De Profundus, Nick''' 
295; "company lounge lizard" and entrepreneur at Mittelwerk during US occupation

'''Der Platz''' 
686; German: "the place"; Säure's communal pad; 711; 745; 746

'''Der Springer''' 
See Springer, Der

'''deuce-and-a-half''' 
313; Nickname for the American Army vehicle vehicle M35A2; ten driven wheels and a camouflage paint scheme. It has 3 axels, as well as a large cargo bed with a 5-ton load carrying capacity.

'''Devil''' 
"Satanic intervention" 110; "midnights of wrestling with the Beast" 111; "Satanic operators of all descriptions" in Psi Section, 125; "old ldies in Altrincham trying to summon up the Devil" 153; "the black scapeape we cast down like Lucifer" 275; "For the devil's kiss" 329; "the Devil behind the [mirror]" 444; "A fall of hours, less extravagant than Lucifer's" 464;

'''Dewey, Thomas (1902-71)''' 
636; was the Republican nomineee for President of the U.S. in 1944 and 1948

'''Diamond Lil''' 
657; Diamond Lil (Honora Ornstein) was a New York City Bowery saloon owner and madame in the 1890s. Mae West played her in the 1933 film, She Done Him Wrong (with her line "Come up sometime 'n' see me").

'''Dickinson, Emily (1830-86)''' 
28; American poet, personal a-and spiritual

'''Dieckmann, Dr.''' 
630; ran Vermittlungsstelle W with Dr. Gorr

'''Die Welt am Montag''' 
571; German: "The World on Monday"; a newspaper

'''Dillinger, John (1903-34)''' 
368-69; American gangster specializing in bank robberies; "As B/4" 436; killed at Biograph Theatre in Chicago, 516; bloody shirt, 741

'''Dillon, Reed''' 
565; Thomas Moore: "During the 1930s, Dillon, Reed & Company of Wall Street handled American transactions for the German steel trust Vereinigte
Stahlwerke (p.143)

'''Disgusting English Candy Drill''' 
116

'''Djuro''' 
732; member of Schwarzkommando, with Enzian

'''Dodgem cars''' 
273;

'''Dodson-Truck, Frank''' 
215; son of Sir Stephen's and Nora's of whom they've lost track after he was sent to Indo-China

'''Dodson-Truck, Nora''' 
145-50; scorpio wife of Sir Stephen D-T, lover of Carroll Eventyr and "connoisseuse of splendid weaknesses"; "erotic nihilist" 149; Ideology of the Zero, 218; maps on to Leni?, 218; "her real identity is [...] the Force of Gravity" 639

'''Dodson-Truck, Sir Stephen''' 
206; tutored Slothrop on rocket stuff and technical German at Casino; husband of Nora D-T; disappears from Casino after Slothrop gets him drunk playing "Prince" and he confesses, 211; at Fitzmaurice House, 228; "Nature of Freedom" drill, 541; 544; at Pirate's, 639 Dog Vanya 78; dog in ARF wing undergoing conditioning experiments

'''Domina Nocturna''' 
232; Katje's S&M character ("shining mother and last love") who satisfies Pudding so that Pointsman can keep funding

'''DOPE''' 
See also Gnahb, Frau; LSD; Sodium Amytal; Stonybloke, Will

'''Dora''' 
289; prison camp next to Mittelwerke, mostly foreign prisoners; "When the Americans liberated Dora" 296; "they call them re-education camps" 408; Ilse and Leni, 428; 430; Pökler goes into, 432-33; 175s (homosexual inmates), 665; See also 175-Stadt

'''Double Agent Convention''' 
537-548; "'But that's the only medium we've got now' he cries, 'our gift for bad faith'" 546;

'''DP''' 
281; DPs (displaced persons) were those who were released from German prison camps and slave labor camps after VE Day; "Since the surrender there have been these constant skirmishes between the German civilians and foreign prisoners freed from the camps." 327; returning home, 549;

'''dracunculiasis''' 
13; more commonly known as Guinea worm disease (GWD). A preventable infection caused by the parasite Dracunculus medinensis. Infection affects poor communities in remote parts of Africa that do not have safe water to drink [From the Center for Disease Control website]

'''Dragon Lady''' 
670; refers to an Asian woman who is perceived as seductive, desirable but untrustworthy. Movies from the early 20th century portrayed this stereotypical version of the Asian woman, "Daughter of Fu Manchu" being a good example. Scheming, treacherous and dangerous, the Dragon Lady is the female version of the Asian bad guy, only with a slightly different approach to defeat her enemies. She has the power to hypnotize her male rivals, gaining their trust by seducing them and, when they least expect it, gets rid of them through sabotage or backstabbing.

'''dreams/dreaming''' 
Pirate's, 3-4; "rosy as a bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection" 5; "Pirate had dreamed these very words" 13; "blinking through an overlay of dream" 29; Pointsman's, 36-38; "Silence comes in, sculptured by spoken dreams" 49; Jessica's, 53; of peacetime, 58; Sodium Amytal-induced toilet adventure, 60-71; "the little baby they dream now of sitting near" 111; Mrs. Quoad's, 119; "after a dream" 121; the Empire's "dreamless version of the real" 129; "the children are away dreaming, but the Empire has no place for dreams" 135; Pointsman's, 137-38; Pointsman's of the Minotaur, 142; Nora DodsonTruck's dreams of flight, 146; Treacle's dreams of flight, 146; Leni's,155-56, 156-58; Leni's dream of flight, 159; "you go from dream to dream inside me" 177; Stalin's pathological, 189; "that touch on the sleeves of his dreams" 209; Pudding's, 232; Slothrop dreaming in German, 240; Slothrop's dream of old pals while in Nice, 255; "[Slothrop] dozes in and out of a hallucination of Alps, fogs, abysses" 257; Slothrop dreaming of Jamf, 268; "a dream of Atlantis, of the Suggenthal" 269; Pointsman's nightmare, 272; "your biography now like any old bad dream" 277; Slothrop's dream (?), 281-83; Slothrop's "Jamf/I" dream, 286-87, 623; Enzian's "wet dream where he coupled with a slender white rocket" 297; Enzian's of an "endless North" 327; "dreaming of food, oblivion, alternate histories. . ." 336; Galina's, 341; "German dreams of the Tenth-Elegy angel" 341; Chu Piang's, 347; 355; Evil Hour, 375; "your dream of pampas and sky" 388; Slothrop's of Berkshire, 392; Alpdrucken ("Nightmare"), 394; Pökler's of rocket, 399-400; Kekulé's dream of 1865, 410; Jung's "ancestral pool" 410; "Pökler dreaming about Kekulé's dream" 412-13; "unrecoverable dreams" 415; Pökler's of bulb as Weissmann, 426-27 (see page 653); "City of Elves producing toy moon-rockets" 431; "Säure's on the move. . .prowling his dreams" 437; Slothrop's transmutation dream, 446-47; "ships we can dream across terrible rapids" 462; Slothrop dreaming of Llandudno, 468; Bianca "dreams often of the same journey" 471; oneiric (dreamlike), 475; "Where was anybody that summer before the War? Dreaming." 475; of battles survived, 490; Slothrop's of Bianca, 492; "Givin' all m'dreams away" 522; Slothrop's of Tantivy, 551-52; "Slothrop dreams" 552; "your saddest dreams" 577; "bursts of destroying beauty there for his dreams to work on" 578; "the dramatic connections that were really all there, in his dreams" 579; Slothrop's of Zwölfkinder and Bianca, 609; "Solange" dreaming of Ilse, 610; Slothrop's of Bette Davis and Margaret Dumont, 619; Pirate's of windmills, 620; "dreaming at the last instant of who can say what lifted smock" 625; Mexico's of Jessica (in the song), 627; "what ladies in black appeared in his dreams" 629; "It wasn't a dream. Don't you wish it could be." 668; Christian's of Maria, 673; "of assassinations, of plots against good and decent men" 689; Dark Dream, 697; keying waves, 699; Beaver's, 708; Gottfried's single dream, 721; "I dream of discovering the edge of the World" 722; "of rendezvous, of cosmic trapeze acts" 723; the Rocket "must answer to a number of different shapes in the dreams of those who touch it" 727; "dream-caressed" 730; "Strung Into the Apollonian Dream" 754; Gottfried, 754; "human figure, dreaming of an early evening in each great capital" 760; See also Jung, Carl

'''Dreyfus Affair''' 
390; Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a French army officer who, in 1893-94, was unjustly accused of delivering to a foreign government documents connected with the national defence, court-martialed and sentenced to life on Devil's Island. In 1906, when anti-semitism had died down in France, the verdict was reversed and he was restored to army rank and fought in WWI.

'''Driwelling''' 
518; engineer at Peenemünde

'''Drohne''' 
487; German: "drone"; "plastics connoisseur" at The Castle

'''Dromond''' 
139; one of the seven original owners of The Book; killed "by German artillery on Shellfire Corner"; 140; 167

'''Dufay, Kim''' 
744; daughter of Pete and Marjorie and schoolmate of Hogan Jr.; [From Pynchon's short story "The Secret Integration" in Slow Learner: "a slender, exotic-looking sixth-grader with a blond pigtail [...] who had a thing about explosive chemical reactions" (p.150)]

'''Dufay, Pete''' 
744; marries Marjorie

'''Dulles, Allen (1893-1969)''' 
268; During WWII, Dulles served with O.S.S. and, when Truman formed the CIA in 1951, he was appointed deputy director and, in 1953, director; "and his 'intelligence' network"

'''Dumbo''' 
one of Osbie Feel's favorite movies, 106; "the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here, how much fun, Walt Disney causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather" 135; "'[Dillinger's bloodstained shirt] worked for me, but I'm out of the Dumbo stage now, I can fly without it." 741

'''Duncan, Isadora (1877-1927)''' 
657; American dancer who was among the first to raise interpretive dance to the status of creative art, incorporating classical, particularly Greek, mythology, art and music. Not very successful in the United States, she took her new style of performance to Europe where it was greeted enthusiastically. She was strangled when her long scarf became entangled in the wheels of a car.

'''Dungans''' 
340; Central Asian people

'''Dunham, Crazy Sue''' 
329; Amy Sprue was ahead of her by 200 years, "sacrificing chickens up on Snodd's Mountain"

'''Dunkirk, Maggie''' 
127; lives in Jessica's dorm

'''du Pont''' 
249; early research on Imipolex G done there

'''Dutch''' 
108; ic heb u liever dan ên everswîn, al waert van finen goude ghewracht (English: I love you more than a wild boar / even if it were made of fine gold)

'''dyes''' 
"Mauve [...] William Perkin discovered it [...] the first new color on Earth" 166; "Tyrian purple, alizarin and indigo, other coal-tar dyes" 166;

'''Dzabajev''' 
390; "teenage Kazazh dope fiend with pimples and a permanently surly look" who is Tchitcherine's sidekick/driver; 564; posing as Frank Sinatra in the Zone, 700; "that sodden Asiatic" 705; with Slothrop, 742; Village Idiot Convention, 743

D

2006-12-06T04:16:10Z

Pynchonoid: formatted D alpha index

D

'''dacoits''' 
644; The Dacoits were Burmese guerrillas who fled to the hills and jungle after the overthrow of Burma in 1886, and waged a desultory campaign against the British for several years.

'''Daedalus''' 
Daedalus was the great craftsman of Greek mythology. He built the labyrinth for Minos on Crete and because he may have helped Theseus escape from the maze, he was imprisoned in it with his son Icarus. He fashioned wings out of wax for himself and his son and, as we all know, Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he fell to his death. Daedalus escaped to Italy and then Sicily; "the gift of Daedalus that allowed Pökler to put as much labyrinth as required between himself and the inconveniences of caring" 428

'''D'Allesandro, Danny''' 
584; a pinball wizard, one of "the great thumbs of Koekuk and Puyallup, Oyster Bay, Inglewood"

'''dancing-shoe wars''' 
57;

'''Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)''' 
350; Florentine poet, most famous for Divina Commedia (1307) which is an encyclopedic narrative which tells in poetry Dante's journey through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil and to Paradise guided by Beatrice; "They are without a touch of Dante to Their notions of reprisal"

'''d'Annunzio, Gabriele (1863-1938)''' 
"Doomed as d'Annunzio's adventure at Fiume" 478; D'Annunzio was an Italian poet, adventurer and political leader; a fierce patriot, he was a strong supporter of the Fascist party under Mussolini; [More about Fiume]

'''Dan''' 
752; "The Lone Ranger will [...] find his young friend, innocent Dan, swinging from a tree limb by a broken neck"

'''Dan Wall's Chili House''' 
63; where Charlie Parker is playing, in Harlem

'''Darlene''' 
19; nurse at St. Veronica's hospital and lover of Slothrop; 114; 271

'''Darnley, Jill''' 
381; competing for Miss Rheingold 1946

'''Dawes-era''' 
74; Charles Dawes (1865-1951) was the vice-president under Coolidge from 1925-29. He headed the commission that drew up the "Dawes plan" setting out German reparation payments in 1924

'''D-Day''' 
577; "when I heard General Eisenhower on the radio announcing the invasion of Normandy";

'''DEATH''' 
See also angels; Empty Ones; Kollwitz, Käthe; [Discussion of WHO DIES in GR]; [Carl Jung]

'''Degenkolb''' 
448; "heading up the Rocket Committee by then"

'''Degrelle, Léon (1906-94)''' 
Founder and leader of the Rexist Party of Belgium, who collaborated with the Germans during World War II. After Belgium was liberated in September 1944, Degrelle was sentenced in absentia to death as a collaborator. He fled to Spain and became a citizen; Louis Borgesius heard him tell the crowd "that they must let themselves be swept away by the flood, they must act, act, and let the rest take care of itself" 544

'''de la Nuit, Rev. Dr. Paul''' 
56; French: de la nuit = "of the night"; house chaplain at White Visitation; 81; 143; "staff automatist" 146; 149

'''de la Perlimpinpin, Georges ("Poudre")''' 
243; "the Limoges fireworks magnate" and father (?) of Raoul

'''de la Perlimpinpin, Raoul''' 
243; throws big party where hollandaise is spiked with hashish & Italo & Tamara have it out with tanks; 463

'''delta-q''' 
647; a quality increment

'''delta-t''' 
An increment of time represented spacially, as on a graph; "Interest from various numbered trusts was still turned [...] in long rallentando, in infinite series just perceptibly, term by term, bying ... never quite to the zero" 28; "the explosion over his head always just about to come" 58; "60 miles up the rockets hanging the measureless instant over the black North Sea" 135; "Our history is an aggregate of last moments" 149; Leni applying it to being in the moment, 159; "The moving vehicle is frozen, in space, to become architecture, and timeless. It was never launched. It will never fall." 301; "a point in space, a point hung precise as the point where burning must end, never launched, never to fall" 302; "corroded Hansel in perpetual arrest" 398; "half-timbered houses, stepped out story by story, about to meet overhead after centuries of imperceptible toppling" 493; "words. . .only delta-t from the things they stand for" 510 (and 100); "nearly about to burn through the last whispering veil" 518; "stairsteps of range and height, delta-x and delta-y, allowing them to grow smaller and smaller, approaching zero [...] frame by frame, delta-x by delta-y, flightless themselves" 567; "the delta-x's and delta-y's of his drifter's spirit" 572; delta-q, 647; rate of change at a cusp, 664; "the delta-t itself" 754; "last thin pages of fluttering closed" 759; "the last delta-t" 760

'''de Mallakastra, Baron''' 
463; passenger on the Anubis

'''de Mérode, Cléo''' 
232; early 20th century dancer; was the mistress of Leopold II of Belgium

'''Demian-metaphysics''' 
403; German novelist Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), experiencing a crisis of the spirit, had psychoanalysis with J.B. Lang, a disciple of Carl Gustav Jung. His novel Demian (1919), which shows the influence of analysis, is about the character Demian (a classic "seeker") and his quest for self-awareness. Published during the troubled Weimar years, the novel was very popular and had a pervasive influence on the Germans. It also made Hesse famous.

'''Denham, Carl''' 
689; director of "King Kong"

'''Denmark''' 
398; "or did you kneel up in the seat, looking over the water, trying to see Denmark?"; "...your new home!' Gray and green, through the mist..." 421; "hooded face of sorrowing Denmark, leaning out over Germany" 484; "off the coast of Denmark" (Frau Gnahb insulting a stone), 497; "If it's Copenhagen she's bound for" 527; "a ghostly crowd of late dandelions waiting for the luminous wind that will break them toward the sea, over to Denmark" 560; "and get over to that Denmark" 623; "crumbs of a pineapple Danish, whorls of an Aetheric Danish" 696; [Thanks to Douglas Kløvedal Lannark for this Denmark listing]

'''De Profundus, Nick''' 
295; "company lounge lizard" and entrepreneur at Mittelwerk during US occupation

'''Der Platz''' 
686; German: "the place"; Säure's communal pad; 711; 745; 746

'''Der Springer''' 
See Springer, Der

'''deuce-and-a-half''' 
313; Nickname for the American Army vehicle vehicle M35A2; ten driven wheels and a camouflage paint scheme. It has 3 axels, as well as a large cargo bed with a 5-ton load carrying capacity.

'''Devil''' 
"Satanic intervention" 110; "midnights of wrestling with the Beast" 111; "Satanic operators of all descriptions" in Psi Section, 125; "old ldies in Altrincham trying to summon up the Devil" 153; "the black scapeape we cast down like Lucifer" 275; "For the devil's kiss" 329; "the Devil behind the [mirror]" 444; "A fall of hours, less extravagant than Lucifer's" 464;

'''Dewey, Thomas (1902-71)''' 
636; was the Republican nomineee for President of the U.S. in 1944 and 1948

'''Diamond Lil''' 
657; Diamond Lil (Honora Ornstein) was a New York City Bowery saloon owner and madame in the 1890s. Mae West played her in the 1933 film, She Done Him Wrong (with her line "Come up sometime 'n' see me").

'''Dickinson, Emily (1830-86)''' 
28; American poet, personal a-and spiritual

'''Dieckmann, Dr.''' 
630; ran Vermittlungsstelle W with Dr. Gorr

'''Die Welt am Montag''' 
571; German: "The World on Monday"; a newspaper

'''Dillinger, John (1903-34)''' 
368-69; American gangster specializing in bank robberies; "As B/4" 436; killed at Biograph Theatre in Chicago, 516; bloody shirt, 741

'''Dillon, Reed''' 
565; Thomas Moore: "During the 1930s, Dillon, Reed & Company of Wall Street handled American transactions for the German steel trust Vereinigte
Stahlwerke (p.143)

'''Disgusting English Candy Drill''' 
116

'''Djuro''' 
732; member of Schwarzkommando, with Enzian

'''Dodgem cars''' 
273;

'''Dodson-Truck, Frank''' 
215; son of Sir Stephen's and Nora's of whom they've lost track after he was sent to Indo-China

'''Dodson-Truck, Nora''' 
145-50; scorpio wife of Sir Stephen D-T, lover of Carroll Eventyr and "connoisseuse of splendid weaknesses"; "erotic nihilist" 149; Ideology of the Zero, 218; maps on to Leni?, 218; "her real identity is [...] the Force of Gravity" 639

'''Dodson-Truck, Sir Stephen''' 
206; tutored Slothrop on rocket stuff and technical German at Casino; husband of Nora D-T; disappears from Casino after Slothrop gets him drunk playing "Prince" and he confesses, 211; at Fitzmaurice House, 228; "Nature of Freedom" drill, 541; 544; at Pirate's, 639 Dog Vanya 78; dog in ARF wing undergoing conditioning experiments

'''Domina Nocturna''' 
232; Katje's S&M character ("shining mother and last love") who satisfies Pudding so that Pointsman can keep funding

'''DOPE''' 
See also Gnahb, Frau; LSD; Sodium Amytal; Stonybloke, Will

'''Dora''' 
289; prison camp next to Mittelwerke, mostly foreign prisoners; "When the Americans liberated Dora" 296; "they call them re-education camps" 408; Ilse and Leni, 428; 430; Pökler goes into, 432-33; 175s (homosexual inmates), 665; See also 175-Stadt

'''Double Agent Convention''' 
537-548; "'But that's the only medium we've got now' he cries, 'our gift for bad faith'" 546;

'''DP''' 
281; DPs (displaced persons) were those who were released from German prison camps and slave labor camps after VE Day; "Since the surrender there have been these constant skirmishes between the German civilians and foreign prisoners freed from the camps." 327; returning home, 549;

'''dracunculiasis''' 
13; more commonly known as Guinea worm disease (GWD). A preventable infection caused by the parasite Dracunculus medinensis. Infection affects poor communities in remote parts of Africa that do not have safe water to drink [From the Center for Disease Control website]

'''Dragon Lady''' 
670; refers to an Asian woman who is perceived as seductive, desirable but untrustworthy. Movies from the early 20th century portrayed this stereotypical version of the Asian woman, "Daughter of Fu Manchu" being a good example. Scheming, treacherous and dangerous, the Dragon Lady is the female version of the Asian bad guy, only with a slightly different approach to defeat her enemies. She has the power to hypnotize her male rivals, gaining their trust by seducing them and, when they least expect it, gets rid of them through sabotage or backstabbing.

'''dreams/dreaming''' 
Pirate's, 3-4; "rosy as a bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection" 5; "Pirate had dreamed these very words" 13; "blinking through an overlay of dream" 29; Pointsman's, 36-38; "Silence comes in, sculptured by spoken dreams" 49; Jessica's, 53; of peacetime, 58; Sodium Amytal-induced toilet adventure, 60-71; "the little baby they dream now of sitting near" 111; Mrs. Quoad's, 119; "after a dream" 121; the Empire's "dreamless version of the real" 129; "the children are away dreaming, but the Empire has no place for dreams" 135; Pointsman's, 137-38; Pointsman's of the Minotaur, 142; Nora DodsonTruck's dreams of flight, 146; Treacle's dreams of flight, 146; Leni's,155-56, 156-58; Leni's dream of flight, 159; "you go from dream to dream inside me" 177; Stalin's pathological, 189; "that touch on the sleeves of his dreams" 209; Pudding's, 232; Slothrop dreaming in German, 240; Slothrop's dream of old pals while in Nice, 255; "[Slothrop] dozes in and out of a hallucination of Alps, fogs, abysses" 257; Slothrop dreaming of Jamf, 268; "a dream of Atlantis, of the Suggenthal" 269; Pointsman's nightmare, 272; "your biography now like any old bad dream" 277; Slothrop's dream (?), 281-83; Slothrop's "Jamf/I" dream, 286-87, 623; Enzian's "wet dream where he coupled with a slender white rocket" 297; Enzian's of an "endless North" 327; "dreaming of food, oblivion, alternate histories. . ." 336; Galina's, 341; "German dreams of the Tenth-Elegy angel" 341; Chu Piang's, 347; 355; Evil Hour, 375; "your dream of pampas and sky" 388; Slothrop's of Berkshire, 392; Alpdrucken ("Nightmare"), 394; Pökler's of rocket, 399-400; Kekulé's dream of 1865, 410; Jung's "ancestral pool" 410; "Pökler dreaming about Kekulé's dream" 412-13; "unrecoverable dreams" 415; Pökler's of bulb as Weissmann, 426-27 (see page 653); "City of Elves producing toy moon-rockets" 431; "Säure's on the move. . .prowling his dreams" 437; Slothrop's transmutation dream, 446-47; "ships we can dream across terrible rapids" 462; Slothrop dreaming of Llandudno, 468; Bianca "dreams often of the same journey" 471; oneiric (dreamlike), 475; "Where was anybody that summer before the War? Dreaming." 475; of battles survived, 490; Slothrop's of Bianca, 492; "Givin' all m'dreams away" 522; Slothrop's of Tantivy, 551-52; "Slothrop dreams" 552; "your saddest dreams" 577; "bursts of destroying beauty there for his dreams to work on" 578; "the dramatic connections that were really all there, in his dreams" 579; Slothrop's of Zwölfkinder and Bianca, 609; "Solange" dreaming of Ilse, 610; Slothrop's of Bette Davis and Margaret Dumont, 619; Pirate's of windmills, 620; "dreaming at the last instant of who can say what lifted smock" 625; Mexico's of Jessica (in the song), 627; "what ladies in black appeared in his dreams" 629; "It wasn't a dream. Don't you wish it could be." 668; Christian's of Maria, 673; "of assassinations, of plots against good and decent men" 689; Dark Dream, 697; keying waves, 699; Beaver's, 708; Gottfried's single dream, 721; "I dream of discovering the edge of the World" 722; "of rendezvous, of cosmic trapeze acts" 723; the Rocket "must answer to a number of different shapes in the dreams of those who touch it" 727; "dream-caressed" 730; "Strung Into the Apollonian Dream" 754; Gottfried, 754; "human figure, dreaming of an early evening in each great capital" 760; See also Jung, Carl

'''Dreyfus Affair''' 
390; Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a French army officer who, in 1893-94, was unjustly accused of delivering to a foreign government documents connected with the national defence, court-martialed and sentenced to life on Devil's Island. In 1906, when anti-semitism had died down in France, the verdict was reversed and he was restored to army rank and fought in WWI.

'''Driwelling''' 
518; engineer at Peenemünde

'''Drohne''' 
487; German: "drone"; "plastics connoisseur" at The Castle

'''Dromond''' 
139; one of the seven original owners of The Book; killed "by German artillery on Shellfire Corner"; 140; 167

'''Dufay, Kim''' 
744; daughter of Pete and Marjorie and schoolmate of Hogan Jr.; [From Pynchon's short story "The Secret Integration" in Slow Learner: "a slender, exotic-looking sixth-grader with a blond pigtail [...] who had a thing about explosive chemical reactions" (p.150)]

'''Dufay, Pete''' 
744; marries Marjorie

'''Dulles, Allen (1893-1969)''' 
268; During WWII, Dulles served with O.S.S. and, when Truman formed the CIA in 1951, he was appointed deputy director and, in 1953, director; "and his 'intelligence' network"

'''Dumbo''' 
one of Osbie Feel's favorite movies, 106; "the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here, how much fun, Walt Disney causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather" 135; "'[Dillinger's bloodstained shirt] worked for me, but I'm out of the Dumbo stage now, I can fly without it." 741

'''Duncan, Isadora (1877-1927)''' 
657; American dancer who was among the first to raise interpretive dance to the status of creative art, incorporating classical, particularly Greek, mythology, art and music. Not very successful in the United States, she took her new style of performance to Europe where it was greeted enthusiastically. She was strangled when her long scarf became entangled in the wheels of a car.

'''Dungans''' 
340; Central Asian people

'''Dunham, Crazy Sue''' 
329; Amy Sprue was ahead of her by 200 years, "sacrificing chickens up on Snodd's Mountain"

'''Dunkirk, Maggie''' 
127; lives in Jessica's dorm

'''du Pont''' 
249; early research on Imipolex G done there

'''Dutch''' 
108; ic heb u liever dan ên everswîn, al waert van finen goude ghewracht (English: I love you more than a wild boar / even if it were made of fine gold)

'''dyes''' 
"Mauve [...] William Perkin discovered it [...] the first new color on Earth" 166; "Tyrian purple, alizarin and indigo, other coal-tar dyes" 166;

'''Dzabajev''' 
390; "teenage Kazazh dope fiend with pimples and a permanently surly look" who is Tchitcherine's sidekick/driver; 564; posing as Frank Sinatra in the Zone, 700; "that sodden Asiatic" 705; with Slothrop, 742; Village Idiot Convention, 743

D

2006-12-06T03:58:13Z

Pynchonoid:

D

dacoits
644; The Dacoits were Burmese guerrillas who fled to the hills and jungle after the overthrow of Burma in 1886, and waged a desultory campaign against the British for several years.

Daedalus
Daedalus was the great craftsman of Greek mythology. He built the labyrinth for Minos on Crete and because he may have helped Theseus escape from the maze, he was imprisoned in it with his son Icarus. He fashioned wings out of wax for himself and his son and, as we all know, Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he fell to his death. Daedalus escaped to Italy and then Sicily; "the gift of Daedalus that allowed Pökler to put as much labyrinth as required between himself and the inconveniences of caring" 428

D'Allesandro, Danny

584; a pinball wizard, one of "the great thumbs of Koekuk and Puyallup, Oyster Bay, Inglewood"
dancing-shoe wars

57;
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

350; Florentine poet, most famous for Divina Commedia (1307) which is an encyclopedic narrative which tells in poetry Dante's journey through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil and to Paradise guided by Beatrice; "They are without a touch of Dante to Their notions of reprisal"
d'Annunzio, Gabriele (1863-1938)

"Doomed as d'Annunzio's adventure at Fiume" 478; D'Annunzio was an Italian poet, adventurer and political leader; a fierce patriot, he was a strong supporter of the Fascist party under Mussolini; [More about Fiume]
Dan

752; "The Lone Ranger will [...] find his young friend, innocent Dan, swinging from a tree limb by a broken neck"
Dan Wall's Chili House

63; where Charlie Parker is playing, in Harlem
Darlene

19; nurse at St. Veronica's hospital and lover of Slothrop; 114; 271
Darnley, Jill

381; competing for Miss Rheingold 1946
Dawes-era

74; Charles Dawes (1865-1951) was the vice-president under Coolidge from 1925-29. He headed the commission that drew up the "Dawes plan" setting out German reparation payments in 1924
D-Day

577; "when I heard General Eisenhower on the radio announcing the invasion of Normandy";

DEATH

See also angels; Empty Ones; Kollwitz, Käthe; [Discussion of WHO DIES in GR]; [Carl Jung]
Degenkolb

448; "heading up the Rocket Committee by then"
Degrelle, Léon (1906-94)

Founder and leader of the Rexist Party of Belgium, who collaborated with the Germans during World War II. After Belgium was liberated in September 1944, Degrelle was sentenced in absentia to death as a collaborator. He fled to Spain and became a citizen; Louis Borgesius heard him tell the crowd "that they must let themselves be swept away by the flood, they must act, act, and let the rest take care of itself" 544
de la Nuit, Rev. Dr. Paul

56; French: de la nuit = "of the night"; house chaplain at White Visitation; 81; 143; "staff automatist" 146; 149
de la Perlimpinpin, Georges ("Poudre")

243; "the Limoges fireworks magnate" and father (?) of Raoul
de la Perlimpinpin, Raoul

243; throws big party where hollandaise is spiked with hashish & Italo & Tamara have it out with tanks; 463
delta-q

647; a quality increment
delta-t

An increment of time represented spacially, as on a graph; "Interest from various numbered trusts was still turned [...] in long rallentando, in infinite series just perceptibly, term by term, bying ... never quite to the zero" 28; "the explosion over his head always just about to come" 58; "60 miles up the rockets hanging the measureless instant over the black North Sea" 135; "Our history is an aggregate of last moments" 149; Leni applying it to being in the moment, 159; "The moving vehicle is frozen, in space, to become architecture, and timeless. It was never launched. It will never fall." 301; "a point in space, a point hung precise as the point where burning must end, never launched, never to fall" 302; "corroded Hansel in perpetual arrest" 398; "half-timbered houses, stepped out story by story, about to meet overhead after centuries of imperceptible toppling" 493; "words. . .only delta-t from the things they stand for" 510 (and 100); "nearly about to burn through the last whispering veil" 518; "stairsteps of range and height, delta-x and delta-y, allowing them to grow smaller and smaller, approaching zero [...] frame by frame, delta-x by delta-y, flightless themselves" 567; "the delta-x's and delta-y's of his drifter's spirit" 572; delta-q, 647; rate of change at a cusp, 664; "the delta-t itself" 754; "last thin pages of fluttering closed" 759; "the last delta-t" 760
de Mallakastra, Baron

463; passenger on the Anubis
de Mérode, Cléo

232; early 20th century dancer; was the mistress of Leopold II of Belgium
Demian-metaphysics

403; German novelist Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), experiencing a crisis of the spirit, had psychoanalysis with J.B. Lang, a disciple of Carl Gustav Jung. His novel Demian (1919), which shows the influence of analysis, is about the character Demian (a classic "seeker") and his quest for self-awareness. Published during the troubled Weimar years, the novel was very popular and had a pervasive influence on the Germans. It also made Hesse famous.
Denham, Carl

689; director of "King Kong"
Denmark
398; "or did you kneel up in the seat, looking over the water, trying to see Denmark?"; "...your new home!' Gray and green, through the mist..." 421; "hooded face of sorrowing Denmark, leaning out over Germany" 484; "off the coast of Denmark" (Frau Gnahb insulting a stone), 497; "If it's Copenhagen she's bound for" 527; "a ghostly crowd of late dandelions waiting for the luminous wind that will break them toward the sea, over to Denmark" 560; "and get over to that Denmark" 623; "crumbs of a pineapple Danish, whorls of an Aetheric Danish" 696; [Thanks to Douglas Kløvedal Lannark for this Denmark listing]

De Profundus, Nick

295; "company lounge lizard" and entrepreneur at Mittelwerk during US occupation
Der Platz

686; German: "the place"; Säure's communal pad; 711; 745; 746
Der Springer

See Springer, Der
deuce-and-a-half

313; Nickname for the American Army vehicle vehicle M35A2; ten driven wheels and a camouflage paint scheme. It has 3 axels, as well as a large cargo bed with a 5-ton load carrying capacity.
Devil

"Satanic intervention" 110; "midnights of wrestling with the Beast" 111; "Satanic operators of all descriptions" in Psi Section, 125; "old ldies in Altrincham trying to summon up the Devil" 153; "the black scapeape we cast down like Lucifer" 275; "For the devil's kiss" 329; "the Devil behind the [mirror]" 444; "A fall of hours, less extravagant than Lucifer's" 464;
Dewey, Thomas (1902-71)

636; was the Republican nomineee for President of the U.S. in 1944 and 1948
Diamond Lil
657; Diamond Lil (Honora Ornstein) was a New York City Bowery saloon owner and madame in the 1890s. Mae West played her in the 1933 film, She Done Him Wrong (with her line "Come up sometime 'n' see me").

Dickinson, Emily (1830-86)
28; American poet, personal a-and spiritual

Dieckmann, Dr.

630; ran Vermittlungsstelle W with Dr. Gorr
Die Welt am Montag

571; German: "The World on Monday"; a newspaper
Dillinger, John (1903-34)

368-69; American gangster specializing in bank robberies; "As B/4" 436; killed at Biograph Theatre in Chicago, 516; bloody shirt, 741
Dillon, Reed
565; Thomas Moore: "During the 1930s, Dillon, Reed & Company of Wall Street handled American transactions for the German steel trust Vereinigte Stahlwerke" (p.143)

Disgusting English Candy Drill

116
Djuro

732; member of Schwarzkommando, with Enzian
Dodgem cars

273;
Dodson-Truck, Frank

215; son of Sir Stephen's and Nora's of whom they've lost track after he was sent to Indo-China
Dodson-Truck, Nora

145-50; scorpio wife of Sir Stephen D-T, lover of Carroll Eventyr and "connoisseuse of splendid weaknesses"; "erotic nihilist" 149; Ideology of the Zero, 218; maps on to Leni?, 218; "her real identity is [...] the Force of Gravity" 639
Dodson-Truck, Sir Stephen

206; tutored Slothrop on rocket stuff and technical German at Casino; husband of Nora D-T; disappears from Casino after Slothrop gets him drunk playing "Prince" and he confesses, 211; at Fitzmaurice House, 228; "Nature of Freedom" drill, 541; 544; at Pirate's, 639 Dog Vanya 78; dog in ARF wing undergoing conditioning experiments
Domina Nocturna

232; Katje's S&M character ("shining mother and last love") who satisfies Pudding so that Pointsman can keep funding
DOPE

See also Gnahb, Frau; LSD; Sodium Amytal; Stonybloke, Will
Dora

289; prison camp next to Mittelwerke, mostly foreign prisoners; "When the Americans liberated Dora" 296; "they call them re-education camps" 408; Ilse and Leni, 428; 430; Pökler goes into, 432-33; 175s (homosexual inmates), 665; See also 175-Stadt
Double Agent Convention

537-548; "'But that's the only medium we've got now' he cries, 'our gift for bad faith'" 546;
DP

281; DPs (displaced persons) were those who were released from German prison camps and slave labor camps after VE Day; "Since the surrender there have been these constant skirmishes between the German civilians and foreign prisoners freed from the camps." 327; returning home, 549;
dracunculiasis

13; more commonly known as Guinea worm disease (GWD). A preventable infection caused by the parasite Dracunculus medinensis. Infection affects poor communities in remote parts of Africa that do not have safe water to drink [From the Center for Disease Control website]
Dragon Lady

670; refers to an Asian woman who is perceived as seductive, desirable but untrustworthy. Movies from the early 20th century portrayed this stereotypical version of the Asian woman, "Daughter of Fu Manchu" being a good example. Scheming, treacherous and dangerous, the Dragon Lady is the female version of the Asian bad guy, only with a slightly different approach to defeat her enemies. She has the power to hypnotize her male rivals, gaining their trust by seducing them and, when they least expect it, gets rid of them through sabotage or backstabbing.

dreams/dreaming

Pirate's, 3-4; "rosy as a bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection" 5; "Pirate had dreamed these very words" 13; "blinking through an overlay of dream" 29; Pointsman's, 36-38; "Silence comes in, sculptured by spoken dreams" 49; Jessica's, 53; of peacetime, 58; Sodium Amytal-induced toilet adventure, 60-71; "the little baby they dream now of sitting near" 111; Mrs. Quoad's, 119; "after a dream" 121; the Empire's "dreamless version of the real" 129; "the children are away dreaming, but the Empire has no place for dreams" 135; Pointsman's, 137-38; Pointsman's of the Minotaur, 142; Nora DodsonTruck's dreams of flight, 146; Treacle's dreams of flight, 146; Leni's,155-56, 156-58; Leni's dream of flight, 159; "you go from dream to dream inside me" 177; Stalin's pathological, 189; "that touch on the sleeves of his dreams" 209; Pudding's, 232; Slothrop dreaming in German, 240; Slothrop's dream of old pals while in Nice, 255; "[Slothrop] dozes in and out of a hallucination of Alps, fogs, abysses" 257; Slothrop dreaming of Jamf, 268; "a dream of Atlantis, of the Suggenthal" 269; Pointsman's nightmare, 272; "your biography now like any old bad dream" 277; Slothrop's dream (?), 281-83; Slothrop's "Jamf/I" dream, 286-87, 623; Enzian's "wet dream where he coupled with a slender white rocket" 297; Enzian's of an "endless North" 327; "dreaming of food, oblivion, alternate histories. . ." 336; Galina's, 341; "German dreams of the Tenth-Elegy angel" 341; Chu Piang's, 347; 355; Evil Hour, 375; "your dream of pampas and sky" 388; Slothrop's of Berkshire, 392; Alpdrucken ("Nightmare"), 394; Pökler's of rocket, 399-400; Kekulé's dream of 1865, 410; Jung's "ancestral pool" 410; "Pökler dreaming about Kekulé's dream" 412-13; "unrecoverable dreams" 415; Pökler's of bulb as Weissmann, 426-27 (see page 653); "City of Elves producing toy moon-rockets" 431; "Säure's on the move. . .prowling his dreams" 437; Slothrop's transmutation dream, 446-47; "ships we can dream across terrible rapids" 462; Slothrop dreaming of Llandudno, 468; Bianca "dreams often of the same journey" 471; oneiric (dreamlike), 475; "Where was anybody that summer before the War? Dreaming." 475; of battles survived, 490; Slothrop's of Bianca, 492; "Givin' all m'dreams away" 522; Slothrop's of Tantivy, 551-52; "Slothrop dreams" 552; "your saddest dreams" 577; "bursts of destroying beauty there for his dreams to work on" 578; "the dramatic connections that were really all there, in his dreams" 579; Slothrop's of Zwölfkinder and Bianca, 609; "Solange" dreaming of Ilse, 610; Slothrop's of Bette Davis and Margaret Dumont, 619; Pirate's of windmills, 620; "dreaming at the last instant of who can say what lifted smock" 625; Mexico's of Jessica (in the song), 627; "what ladies in black appeared in his dreams" 629; "It wasn't a dream. Don't you wish it could be." 668; Christian's of Maria, 673; "of assassinations, of plots against good and decent men" 689; Dark Dream, 697; keying waves, 699; Beaver's, 708; Gottfried's single dream, 721; "I dream of discovering the edge of the World" 722; "of rendezvous, of cosmic trapeze acts" 723; the Rocket "must answer to a number of different shapes in the dreams of those who touch it" 727; "dream-caressed" 730; "Strung Into the Apollonian Dream" 754; Gottfried, 754; "human figure, dreaming of an early evening in each great capital" 760; See also Jung, Carl
Dreyfus Affair
390; Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a French army officer who, in 1893-94, was unjustly accused of delivering to a foreign government documents connected with the national defence, court-martialed and sentenced to life on Devil's Island. In 1906, when anti-semitism had died down in France, the verdict was reversed and he was restored to army rank and fought in WWI.

Driwelling

518; engineer at Peenemünde
Drohne

487; German: "drone"; "plastics connoisseur" at The Castle
Dromond

139; one of the seven original owners of The Book; killed "by German artillery on Shellfire Corner"; 140; 167
Dufay, Kim

744; daughter of Pete and Marjorie and schoolmate of Hogan Jr.; [From Pynchon's short story "The Secret Integration" in Slow Learner: "a slender, exotic-looking sixth-grader with a blond pigtail [...] who had a thing about explosive chemical reactions" (p.150)]
Dufay, Pete

744; marries Marjorie
Dulles, Allen (1893-1969)

268; During WWII, Dulles served with O.S.S. and, when Truman formed the CIA in 1951, he was appointed deputy director and, in 1953, director; "and his 'intelligence' network"
Dumbo

one of Osbie Feel's favorite movies, 106; "the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here, how much fun, Walt Disney causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather" 135; "'[Dillinger's bloodstained shirt] worked for me, but I'm out of the Dumbo stage now, I can fly without it." 741
Duncan, Isadora (1877-1927)

657; American dancer who was among the first to raise interpretive dance to the status of creative art, incorporating classical, particularly Greek, mythology, art and music. Not very successful in the United States, she took her new style of performance to Europe where it was greeted enthusiastically. She was strangled when her long scarf became entangled in the wheels of a car.
Dungans

340; Central Asian people
Dunham, Crazy Sue

329; Amy Sprue was ahead of her by 200 years, "sacrificing chickens up on Snodd's Mountain"
Dunkirk, Maggie

127; lives in Jessica's dorm
du Pont

249; early research on Imipolex G done there
Dutch

108; ic heb u liever dan ên everswîn, al waert van finen goude ghewracht (English: I love you more than a wild boar / even if it were made of fine gold)
dyes

"Mauve [...] William Perkin discovered it [...] the first new color on Earth" 166; "Tyrian purple, alizarin and indigo, other coal-tar dyes" 166;
Dzabajev

390; "teenage Kazazh dope fiend with pimples and a permanently surly look" who is Tchitcherine's sidekick/driver; 564; posing as Frank Sinatra in the Zone, 700; "that sodden Asiatic" 705; with Slothrop, 742; Village Idiot Convention, 743