E
Earp, Wyatt (1848-1929) (aka Berry Stapp)
210; legendary frontiersman of the American West, who was an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man. He worked as a police officer in Wichita and Dodge City, eventually becoming assistant marshall and buddy of such gunmen as Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. After remarrying (his first wife died of typhoid fever), he left Dodge City and eventually ended up in Tombstone, Arizona. He became a gambler and guard in the Oriental Saloon, and his brother Virgil became town marshal. By 1881 a feud which had been developing between the Earps and a gang led by Ike Clanton was finally resolved in the celebrated gunfight at the O.K. Corral (Oct. 26, 1881), pitting the Clanton gang against three Earp brothers (Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan) and Doc Holliday. The Earps prevailed.
EARTH
See also Counterforce; Erdmann, Margherita; Erdschweinhöhle
Eastern Question
What power would control the Middle East and Balkans after the Turks?; "an obscure penance for the previous century of British policy on the Eastern Question" 14; See Balkan Intrigues
Eberle, Bob
264; "seen toasts to Tangerine raised in ev-ry bar"; Eberle was a vocalist with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the 1930s and 1940s; "Tangerine" was one of their hits.
Easterling
139; one of the seven original owners of The Book; "taken early in a raid by the Luftwaffe"; 140; 167
Edelman, Steve
[German: "Edelmann" = "nobleman"]; Tales of the Schwarzkommando, Collected by, 315; "Kabbalist spokesman" 753; "a Hollywood business man. . .accused of Attempted Mopery" 755
Edward VIII (1894-1972)
59; succeeded his father, George V, as King of Great Britain and Ireland in January 20, 1936, but abdicated on December 11, 1936 due to disapproval of his proposed marriage to Mrs. Edward Simpson. He was then given the title Duke of Windsor.
Effig, Private Rudolf
733; his note to "Stretchfoot" [aka, Blicero: see p.759 at "Streckefuss"] on the wall, which Slothrop sees somewhere in northern Germany. [effig. is an abbreviation for latin effigiavit, meaning 'drawn by', and was used in the printing business. - provided by Jan Bayer]
Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)
The great German-Swiss-American mathematical physicist whose special theory of relativity (1905) and general theory of relativity (1916) revolutionized the world of physics; former patron of the Odeon, 262;
Eisenhower, Dwight D. ("Ike") (1890-1969)
American General in WWII and 34th U.S. president (1948-56); "laid down the controlling guideline, the 'strategy of truth' idea. Something 'real,' Ike insisted on" 74; "Psychological Warfare Division [...] reporting direct to" 76; "[Slothrop's] sooper dooper SHAEF pass, signed off by Ike" 298; caricature of on Toiletship, 450; "on the radio announcing the invasion of Normandy" on D-Day, and Pökler thinks his voice is identical to Clark Gable's, 577
Eisenkröte
603; Iron Toad in the pissoir at Putzi's - "ultimate test of manhood in the Zone"
Eis-Heiligen
281; German: Ice Saints; "St. Pancratius, St. Servatius, St. Bonifacius, die kalte Sophie" — The Ice Saints are St. Pancratius, St. Servatius, St. Bonifacius, and St. Sophie. Their commemorations are made respectively at the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of May, i.e., at a time when there are frequent cold spells ("last frost") in central Europe. This is why, traditionally, German farmers did now sow before they were "safely past the Eisheiligen," or did not drive their cattle to the pastures. There was a (now extinct) custom to build fires at these days to expel the winter. [Thanks to Jan Bayer]
Eispalast
652; German: "Ice Palace"; "the great Berlin"
Ekori
730; Herero: "cap"; Schwartzkommando who is wounded
ELAS Greeks
34; ELAS (Ellinikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos) was one of three dominant Greek resistance groups to arise in opposition to the Nazis after they invaded and occupied Greece in 1941. Comprised primarily of communists, the "Greek People's Liberation Army" was rebuffed by the British in its attempt to take power after the liberation of Greece in 1944, with the "royalists" retaining control of the government.
Electra House
80; During WWII the British broadcasting and radio propaganda offices were located here, in London; [MORE]
Elektromechanische Werke, Karlshagen
451; "another cover name for the testing station at Peenemünde, where Achtfaden worked
El Ñato
383; guitarist on U-boat; 612
Empty Ones
316; "Otukungurua"; faction of Hereros who want negative birthrate ("tribal v. Christian death"), 318; aka "Revolutionaries of the Zero" 317; See also Hereros
Enbeksi Qazaq
347: "17 August" issue in which Chu's opium is wrapped
Engels, Friedrich (1820-95)
348; German socialist who lived in England after 1842. He met Karl Marx in 1844 and they collaborated on the Communist Manifesto (1848)
Enola Gay, Miss
588; The Enola Gay, a B-29 built by Pynchon's previous employer Boeing Aircraft, dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. [WAY MORE]
ENSA show
657; British: Entertainers National Service Association, sponsored shows for servicemen
entropy/closed systems/irreversibility
"the coiled whispers of decay" 94; A-4 as "mockery of. . .the reversible process" 139; Pointsman "lapsing to isotropy" 142; "sooner or later everyone out here has to go Epidermal [See: "enclosed in [...] dead cells" 94]. No exceptions." 148; "the reality is not reversible" 151; Arbella in reverse, 204; "All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all." 230; Maxwell's Demon, 239; "no way backward now" 257; Entropy Management, 260; fear of open system, 264; "Taking land is building more fences. We want to leave it open. We want it to grow, to change" 265; Rossini's music is "love without payment of any kind" 274; orangutan "clockwork runs down" 282; "Their several entropies" 302; coprophilia & urolagnia as closed systems, 319; "entropies of loveable but scatterbrained mother nature" 324; painkillers without addiction, 348; cocaine & the A4, 375; drifting away, 405; Clerk Maxwell, 411; "a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, [...] removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: [...] most of the World, animal, vegetable and mineral, is laid waste in the process" 412; serpent eating its tail, 413; isotropy, 415; Beethoven ("represents the German dialectic [...] where [ultimately] all notes get an equal hearing") and Webern ("all notes were truly equal at last"), 440; Anubis orgy as closed system, 467; "inside his own cock" 470; Morituri - "just keep moving" 479; irreversible process, 519, 524, 589; potatoes used for rockets--no food, 550, 640; Wm. Slothrop's pigs, 555; messages, 624; information, 642; haircut, 643; Karmic Hammer, 644; bulb-life problem, 654; Floundering Four each gifted & flawed by the gift, 675; icebox, 678; "They've stopped the inflow/outflow" 694; Great Irreversible, 745; "any system which cannot tolerate heresy: a system which, by its nature, must sooner or later fall." 747; See also masturbation
Enzian, Oberst
100; German: "gentian" (a flowering herb); oberst = "highest" or "chief"; named by Weissmann/Blicero after a color in the Rilke poem ("mountainside gentian of Nordic colors"); meets Slothrop on top of train to Nordhausen and pushes Marvy off the train, 288; Illumination of, 297; of Bleicherode, 315; aka Nguarorerue ("one who has been proven"), 314, 316; aka Otyikondo ("halfbreed"), 316; arrived in German from Südwest in December 1926, 352; half-brother of Tchitcherine; Weissmann's protege and "Monster" 404; estrangement between "monster" Enzian and Weissmann, 426; 499; "on into some other paranoid terror" 522; search for the True Text, 525; with Katje, 658; Suave Older Exotic, 662; "he knows" 667; and the 00001, 724 More on Enzian
According to The Last Year of the German Army by James Lucas (Arms & Armor Press, 1994; ISBN: 1-85409-334-7):
The Enzian was a ground-to-air missile carrying a 500kg warhead. The initial launch was made by four solid-fuel rockets, and as they burned out liquid-fuelled rockets took over and carried the missile to its objective. Accuracy was to be achieved by one of the special types of newly developed fuses, infra-red, thermal, or acoustic. The Enzian showed promise but the programme was shut down during January 1945.
Thanks to Michael Behm for the info.
And this, provided by Joseph Andrew Bono:
On the name Enzian in "Gravity's Rainbow," in "Guided Weapons" (Burgess, Eric, Macmillan Company, New York, 1957) Burgess says:
Enzian was a ground-to-air pilotless aircraft which had a similar outline to the Me 163 target-defence interceptor fighter, for it was essentially a small aircraft with sharply swept-back wings. As in the Me 163, two ailerons were incorporated for control purposes, but at launching Enzian was mounted on a large inclined platform from which take-off at a high angle was assisted by means of solid-propellant boosters mounted in pairs at the wing roots. Several versions of this weapon were being developed . . . the missile had not found operational use by the end of World War II. (page 133)
An interesting addendum is the Natter "a somewhat similar but larger weapon. It differed from Enzian in that it was designed to carry a human pilot who could take control after an almost vertical and automatically-controlled ascent." (134)
The Natter rocket plane (a one shot plane that required the pilot to parachute back to Earth) was the last attempt the WWII German government made to create a rocket powered manned plane. The only test flight of the Natter was a disaster - the cockpit came off in mid ascent, killing the pilot. The Natter is mentioned just one page before the Enzian in Von Braun's "History of Rocketry and Space Travel," one of Pynchon's sources for "Gravity's Rainbow."
Épernay
213; one of the two towns in the center of France's Champagne region (the other is Reims). It is the home of Pol Roger and Moet et Chandon Champagne. Interesting to point out that when Napoleon campaigned Eastwards, he would always divert his army via Reims and Epernay, as he always celebrated a win with champagne and never wanted to run out. (Contributed by Paul Bowers)
Ephemeris
754; An ephemeris is a tabular statement of the assigned places of an celestial body for regular intervals; "based on the [Earth's] new rotation"
Erdmann, Margherita (Greta)
364; [German: "erd" = "earth, soil"] German film actress; mother of Bianca; star of von Göll's Alpdrucken; worked for von Göll in vaguely pornographic horror movies; the "Anti-Dietrich" 394; real name not "Erdmann" 395; in Berlin with Slothrop, 433; feels abandoned by Slothrop when he returns, 443; married to Thanatz, 461; murdering Jewish children, 477-78; aka Gretel, 482; Weisse Sandwüste von Neumexiko ("White Sand Desert of New Mexico"--perhaps a reference to nuclear testing in New Mexico) 482; with Max Schlepzig in Jugend Herauf! ("Youth Arise!"), 483; with Blicero and Thanatz on the Heath, 485-88; mapped on to Katje, 486; 672
Erdschweinhöhle
315-16; [German: "erd"="earth", "schwein"="pig", "höhle"="hole"] underground communities of Hereros living in Germany; "a dialectic of word made flesh" 321; 524-25; delegates, 538; 671; 672-73; See also Hereros; Pigs
Esberg, Marine Captain
691; wins "all-expense, one-way trip for one to. . .Puke-a-hook-a-look-i Island!"
Esso
240; gasoline Slothrop preferred for his Terraplane
Estelle
171; "the doorkeeper's daughter" at White Visitation, and her son Arch, with whom Gwenhidwy plays "slap-and-tickle"
ETO
18; European Theatre of Operations; Caserne Martier in, 246;
Eurydice
472; Eurydice, according to Greek myth, dies and goes to the underworld (Hades). Her lover, Orpheus, goes to retrieve her. He is told Eurydice can follow him back to the world of the living as long as he doesn't look back while they are returning. Eventually overcome with doubt as to whether or not she is still following him, he looks back and thereby loses Eurydice forever; Orpheus Puts Down Harp, 754; [Orpheus in Mason & Dixon]
Evans, Jeremiah ("Merciful")
541; "well-known political informer from Pembroke"; "tone-deaf Welsh stoolie" 545
Eventyr, Carroll
31; (Danish: "fairytale, adventure"); medium at White Visitation in the Abbey in south England; lover of Nora D-T; 33; his story, 145; "trying to confirm the Lübeck angel" 217; maps on to Sachsa?, 238; 706; recruited Pudding into the Counterforce, 715
Evil Hour
"at certain hours, a round white light" 137; "near midnight, her hour" 205; "the hour without a name (unless it's...no...NO...)" 267; "that well-remembered fragrance Noon in Berlin, essence of human decay" 374; "it's nearly noon. From 11 to 12 in the morning is the Evil Hour, when the white woman with the ring of keys comes out of her mountain and may appear to you [...] The Hour is hers" 374-75; "the Evil Hour has worked its sorcery" 377; "the height of the Evil Hour" 439; "horror will come when the afternoon is brightest" 471; "Horror in the brightest hour of afternoon" 471; "a man in a white suit [...] who's supposed to be on the Strand-Promenade [...] every day around noon" 492; "The exact clock time, which varies throughout the year, is known as Rocket Noon" 500; "today's Rocket Noon, two circular explosions inside the rush hour" 501; "ev'ry day at Rocket Noon, there's death, and revelry" 508; "what's shadowless noon and what isn't" 509; "a common criminal who is to be hanged at noon" 625; "the noon on the Heath when 00000 was fired" 667; "You know what time. The usual hour." 680; "at noon [Geli] comes to a farm house" 718; "a permanent five-o'clock shadow (the worst by far of all the Hourly Shadows)" 755;
excrement
"penguin shit" 11; "shit, money and the Word" 28; Pointsman's foot in toilet bowl, 42; "street excrement" 46; cat shit, 51; Slothrop's toilet adventure, 64-67; copromancy, 65; "jellied textures of human shit" 79; "too much shit in these streets" 135; "piss-swollen men" 136; "excremental kisses" 150; "Earth's excrement" (coal tars), 166; "preterite dung" 166; "footprints of shit the color of themselves" 173; "seagull shit" 203; "stained with genuine SS shit and piss" 211; Pudding and Domina Nocturna, 234-36; "turds on the Bokhara rug" 246; "shit-eating grin" 253; "feelings about blackness were tied to feelings about shit, and feelings about shit were tied to feelings about putrefaction and death" 276; Deutschmarks used as toilet paper, 284; "naughty bathroom moment" 296; "Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul. . .where a fellow can. . .enjoy the smell of his own shit." 317; coprophilia & urolagnia, 319; Outase (one of the many Herero words for "shit"), 325; "you vill shit now?" 360;"oozing shit that burns like acid" 360; "shit leaking out of him at gallons per hour" 364; King Kong taking a shit, 368; "pleasant anticipation" 405; baby Ilse's, 418; Pökler at ground zero, 426; Dora camp, 432; "pissing in the center grooves of cobbled alleys" 434; "eyes like two pissholes in a snowbank" 437; "diamonds in the shit of smugglers" 438; turd-shaped monoliths, 451; "Little piece of Jewish shit" 478; giant turds, 485; Bianca, 531; 535; "never-slackening shit" 586; "Europe died meanly in its own wastes" 616; "trying to take a quiet shit" 631; Mexico pissing on Mossmoon's table, 636 (aka "Urinating Incident" 710); "ladylike turds" 639; "prehistoric wastes" 639; "urolagnia jokes" 649; Byron down the toilet, 652; "deep feelings about shit" 654; "Thanatz's asshole tightens a notch." 666; "Shit 'n' Shinola" 687; Tranvestites' Toilet, 688; "shit. . .is the color white folks are afraid of" 688; "put the fuse out. . .right in the stream of piss" 689; rat turds, 692; They interdict the toilet, 694; "Bad Shit" 713; "consecrated to shit" 722; "dark figure with a stream of luminescent piss" 739; "fields of shit" 739; fart-driven siren ring, 740; "not one trickle of shit, Liebchen?" 757; See also Toiletship, holy shit
Eyeties
132; slang: Italians
