F
Faffner, Hank
665; Masonic "engineer-on-the-scene"; [Etymological Musings]
Fahringer
403; (German: "traveller"); Zen fellow at Peenemünde with Achfaden and Pökler; 454
Faraday, Michael (1791-1867)
English chemist and physicist who created classical field theory. He was the first to isolate benzene and he synthesized the first chlorocarbons. His other discoveries include electromagnetic induction, the laws of electrolysis, and the rotation of polarized light by magnetism. He's considered the greatest of all experimental physicists; portrait of in the Tate Gallery in London, "eyes [...] so lambent, sinister, so educated" 584
Fariña, Richard (1937-66)
Richard Fariña, to whom Gravity's Rainbow is dedicated, was a good friend of Pynchon's when they were students at Cornell University in the 50s. In 1963, Farina married Mimi Baez, a folksinger and sister of Joan Baez. Although first married under the Napoleonic Code in a secret ceremony in Paris in the spring of 1963, they had an official marriage in Carmel, California, for the benefit of the Baez family. Pynchon was the best man for the Carmel ceremony, coming up from Mexico City where he was living and working on Gravity's Rainbow. In A Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone, Farina's posthumously published collection of stories (Random House, 1969), Farina describes his and Pynchon's visit to the Monterey Fair. Richard and Mimi Farina formed a folk-music duo (Farina on guitar and Mimi on dulcimer, both singing) and released several albums in the 60s. Richard Farina was killed in a motorcycle crash following a book signing in Carmel for his newly published first (and only) novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (Random House, 1966). You might want to visit this sweet website dedicated to the memory of Richard and Mimi (who died of cancer in 2001).
"the good father" 135; "your father's a dreary young man" 175; Penelope's dead father, 175-76; "Fathers are conditioned into deliberately dying in certain preferred ways" 176; "all those Papi-has-raped-me stories" 272; "Schwarzvater" 286; Qulan's father, 340; Pökler's ineptitude as, 410; "[the Hereros] don't want my patriarchy" 522; American Founding Fathers, 587-88; "typical American teenager's own Father, trying. . .to kill his son" 674; "Father-conspiracy" 679; "Fathers are carriers of the virus of Death, and sons are the infected" 723; "the father you will never quite manage to kill" 747; See also mothers
Fauntleroy
Prissily garbed in knee-pants, velvet suit and bows, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) was the creation of English novelist Frances Eliza Hodgson (b.1849). She also wrote The Secret Garden; "a boy of 6 or 7 in a velvet Fauntleroy suit" 491; "somewhere in tucked in the brain's plush album is always a child in Fauntleroy clothes" 736
Fauve
183;
Feel, Osbie
5; cultivates pharmaceutical plants on the roof of Pirate's maisonette; eggs to golfballs, 9; doper at White Visitation -- "the house idiot- savant" 92; with Pirate, 111-12; 533; Doper's Greed - film with 2 cowboys + midget, 534; stoned with aura, 536; "'In the Parliament of Life, the time comes, simply, for a division. We are now in the corridors we have chosen, moving toward the Floor....'" 536; in Marseilles, 620; Porky Pig tattoo, 638; Is that Pynchon inside his own novel?
Feldspath, Roland
30; expert on control systems, guidance equations; spirit in seance; 238-39
Feldspath, Selena
30; surviving wife of Roland; 31
Felipe
383; "difficult young poet" on U-boat; 612
Felix
508; tuba player on board Frau Gnabb's boat
Femina
368; club in Berlin; "what the notorious Femina is to cigarette-jobbing circles"
Ferguson, Elmer
584; a pinball wizard, one of "the great thumbs of Koekuk and Puyallup, Oyster Bay, Inglewood"
fern seed
379; accredited with endowing invisibility in traditional folklore; fell in Slothrop's shoes sometime back on Midsummer Eve, between midnight and one, making him the invisible youth, the armored changeling. Providence's little pal. More about the fern seed...
Fibel, Bert
453-54; [German: "primer"]; worked with Achtfaden; worked for Siemens when it was part of Stinnes trust; kept an eye on infant Tyrone while working for GE in Pittsfield, MA; fixed defective pinball machines, 586-87; "stonefaced Kraut [...] a genius with solenoids" 587; 687; Etymological Musings
Fierro, Martin
386-87; gaucho hero of Argentinian legend; von Göll wants to make a film about him; 610
"velveteen darkness" 3; "[Pirate] learned [his grin] at the films" 32; "what Hollywood likes to call a 'cute meet'" 38; "the cinema kiss never completed" 49; "horror-movie devilfish" 51; Fay Wray look, 57; "Disneyfied look" 70; "a De Mille set" 71; Katje, 92, 112; paranoia in movie theatres, 114; "the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here" 135; "medium shot" 142; "All of us watching some wry newsreel, the beam from the projector falling milky-white. . .the manly crepe of an overseas cap knifing forward into the darkened cinema" 150; Sachsa seance, 152; special effects, 159; "[Katje] evaporates before the question, re-forms in another part of the room" 194; "this wardrobe here's mostly props" 195; Katje's cinema werewolf transformation, 196; Marx-Brothers-like episode with Seltzer bottle, 197; "from a German camera angle" 229; Zootsuit Zanies, 251; soundtrack (clarinets, guitars and mandolins), 255; "Saturday-afternoon western movies" 264; "Wild West movie" 338; "Nazi movie villain" 360; extras, 374; "Leaps broad highways in a single bound!"--380; camera angle (opening of Fierro film), 386; "paracinematic lives" 388; soundtrack ("windy strings and reed sections"), 398; "couldn't even go to the movies" 402; filming gauges on rocket flights, 406-07; successive stills, 407; "the moving images of a daughter" 422; 423; Ilse "has persisted beyond her cinema mother, beyond film's end" 429; "cue calls for the titanic sets of her dreams" 446; "Goebbels' private collection" 461; "that same nacreous wrinkling the films use to suggest rain out a window" 471; "slouched alone in your own seat" 472; "watching Allied footage for what could be pulled and worked into newsreels to make the Axis look good" 473; "Looks like German movies have warped other outlooks around here too." 474; faces "very smooth, film-star polished" 477; "filthy movies are showing in the boiler room" 490; "But mistakes are part of it too--everything fits. One sees how it fits, ja? learns patterns, adjusts to rhythms, one day you are no longer an actor, but free now, over on the other side of the camera." 494;"silent-movie style looking to strangle" 495; cartoon-y, 498; "Dillinger, at the end, found a few seconds' strange mercy in the movie images that hadn't quite yet faded from his eyeballs" 516; "gobbles Pervitin like popcorn at the movies" 522; "film and calculus, both pornographies of flight" 523; "this ain't the fuckin' movies" 527; "not yet" 527-28; "There's the son of Frankenstein in it, too. I wish we could have more direct" 536; "a government newsreel, FROM CLOAK AND DAGGER TO CROAK AND STAGGER" 542; "another long night of cinema without schedule" 542; "as the camera moves in for a close-up" 543; "My dream is to bring all these kids. . .out to Hollywood" 559; Klein-Rogge, Rudolph (actor - Pökler's favorite), 578; "movie queens" 586; "frames per century" 612; "a bad cinema spring" 628; chase scenes, 198, 308-13, 334,637; "comic Nazi routine" 633; 641; "we're strangers at the films, condemned to separate rows aisles, exits, homegoings" 663; Floundering Four, 674-80; "Yes, it is a movie! Another WWII situation comedy" 692; "Their Movieola viewer" 694; "as nasal and debonair as a movie star" 697; "moves image to image" 721; "black and white film images" 723; documentary style, 738; "subdebs just out the movies" 741; sound editing, 745; Chase Music, 751; "a whole movie-cue of witnesses" 755; "old fans who've always been at the movies" 760; See also actors/directors; King Kong; movies; theatre; Ufa-theatre
Film, Ansco, Winthrop
630; an American subsidiary/licensee of IG
"between his red nail-bitten hands" 57; "His fingernails draw blood" 67; "he fingernails a piece of this out from between his teeth" 117; "toenail-holds" 118; "her lacquered red fingernails" 127; "long-routinized nudge of horn, flip of hoof" 142; "ringing the snifter with his fingernail" 195; "rake his nails along inside her thighs" 222; "raking dreamy fingernails down the morning" 226; "She has filed her nails to long points" 233; "stroking with her fingernails her labia" 235; "pedicured Mayfair address" 270; "chewed-down fingernails sharp as a saw" 294; "television images flickering aross their toenails" 296; "receives it in long dirty fingernails" 365; "brushing tears from his face with the tips of her nails. [...] The nails are very sharp" 444; "She flicks a pale bitten thumbnail from one of her top teeth" 445; "scarlet nails digging sharp as needles" 469; "needle-tipped fingers" 469; "Flipping his fingernail against a large clear African mask" 487; "He breaks a fingernail" 531; "scratching and picking with dirt-black fingernails" 542; "a very large white finger [...] Its Fingernail is beautifully manicured" 566; "[Marvy's] toenails, cut Army-square" 606; "cusp-flicks of fingernails" 664; "scratching [...] with a horn finger" 710; "corporate teeth and polished fingernails" 714; "Tchitcherine's toenail clippings" 717; "sketched in clay with her long fingernail" 734; See also paraboloids; Interface
Firm, the
12ff; The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6. See also SOE
Fisk, Jubilee Jim (1834-1872)
285; Known popularly as the "Barnum of Wall Street" and "Jubilee Jim," Fisk was one of the most outrageous figures of the Gilded Age. The most notorious plot of Fisk's short career was the attempt to corner the gold market during 1868 and 1869. Fisk's and Jay Gould's effort collapsed when President U.S. Grant intervened to halt the Black Friday scandal. Fisk brazenly refused to honor his contracts, leaving thousands ruined. Fisk's exploits were the fodder of innumerable newspaper reports, but the Black Friday episode finally made virtual outcasts of both Fisk and Gould. Fisk was shot to death on the main stairway of the Broadway Central Hotel in New York City in January 1872. His murderer, Ned Stokes, was a rival for the attentions of Josie Mansfield, an actress of limited talent [From U-S-History.com]; "what ~ told the Congressional committee investigating his and Jay Gould's scheme to corner gold in 1869" 438
Fitzmaurice House
76; Foreign Office Political Intelligence Dept. located there; Stephen Dodson-Truck works there, 215; 221; 228
Flamp, Constance
714-717; at Krupp party (aka "Commando Connie")
Flaum
453; one of "the reentry people" at Peenemünde
Flebótomo, Cesar
184; manager of Casino Hermann Goering; an excellent name for a casino manager: a caesar is a ruler, phlebotomy is the act of drawing blood, therefore 'King Bloodsucker'; 191
Flit
112; "fall smothered like bugs in the presence of"
674-80; (1) Myrtle Miraculous - performs miracles--"love is the only miracle that's beyond her"; (2) Maximilian - Negro with natural rhythms ("all rhythms, up to and including the cosmic")--"never. . .go any further into danger than its dapperness"; (3) Marcel - "a mechanical chessplayer" ("exquisite 19th-century brainwork")--"much too literal with humans"; (4) Slothrop. Each is gifted and flawed by his gift. Mission: rescue the Radiant Hour.
Flying Down to Rio
106; A 1933 RKO musical film noted for being the first screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Astaire and Rogers were not the stars of the film, however; Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond were top-billed.
Flying Dutchman
498;
Flying Fortress
169; The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps.
Folies-Bergères
After a major opening in a new theatre in 1869, the Folies became one of the first major music halls in Paris, featuring operetta and pantomine. Toward the end of the 19th century, the theatre's repertory consisted of musical comedies and revues, operettas, vaudeville sketches, playlets, ballets, eccentric dancers (including those high-kicking cancan dancers), acrobats, jugglers, magicians and tightrope walkers. The titles of all the Folies' shows since the late 1880s have each consisted of a total of 13 letters; "doing the cancan" 583
football
See lawn sports
Forbidden Wing
205; the Himmler-Spielsaal room at Casino H. Goering; "breath of Forbidden Wing" 285
Förschner, Major
431; his security detail at Mittelwerke
Foreign Office
Political Intelligence Department (P.I.D.) of, 74, 206
formée cross
243; Jamf's inside "a gold hexagon [...] a medal of honor from IG Farben" 413;
Foxes
47; Spectro's generic term for any patient; 53; 58; 138; 139; on the Toiletship, 450; "sharp as foxes" 718; (See also fox-trot)
fox-trot
182; a ballroom dance in duple time with alternating slow and quick steps; (See also songs/compositions)
Franco, Francisco (1892-1975)
234; Spanish military dictator. He and his troops attacked Spain from 1936-39 and eventually overthrew the republican government (with the help of Hitler and Mussolini). He was head of the régime and remained firmly in control until his death. Spain remained neutral during WWII.
Françoise
183, girl on beach, along with Ghislaine and Yvonne, who is a dancer at Casino Hermann Goering; 193 (named); 194; 204
Frangibella
547; mentioned in Pirate's and Katje's How I Came To Love the People
Frank
547; mentioned in Pirate's and Katje's How I Came To Love the People
Frankenstein
246; Monster from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel of the same name; inspiration for many, many movies
Franklin, Benjamin (1706-90)
663; An American statesman and scientist, he was, according to the Firesign Theatre, "The only president of the United States who was never president of the United States; "kite, thunder, and key"; "was also a Mason and given to cosmic forms of practical jokesterism" 664; "A Nickel Saved [...] is a stockpile of nickel" 664;
Franklin, Sir John (1786-1847)
589; An English arctic explorer, Sir John perished in the Victoria Straight while attempting to discover the Northwest passage. Records found later indicate that Sir John did discover the Northwest passage.
106; 1932 American horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by MGM, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' short story "Spurs". Director Browning took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks," rather than using costumes and makeup; 534 Also mentioned in Inherent Vice.
Fred and Phyllis
711; "who's that tapping and giggling at your door [...]?"
Frederick the Great (1712-86)
This arty, intellectual Prussian, the son of Frederick-William I, became king of Prussia in 1840. In 1756 he initiated the "Seven Years' War." His military exploits resulted in a Prussia that had doubled in size by the time of his death; 314; 394;
Fred Roper's Company of Wonder Midgets
37; "off to fan imperial fair in Johannesburg"
Free French
34; "plotting revenge on Vichy traitors
Freud, Sigmund (d. 1939)
16; Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis; "Freudian revenge against his mother" 89; 272; 276
Frick Frack Club
22; club in Soho where Slothrop finds girls
Frieda the Pig
398; Pökler's pig; with Slothrop, 575; See also PIGS
Friedmann
396; "the Russian mathematician"
Friedrichstrasse
373; location of Chicago Bar
Frisch, Fromm, Frölich, Frei
624; German: alert, devout, happy, free ("Frölich" should be "Fröhlich"); From Jan Bayer: the motto of the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädels, or, as my grandmother used to say 'Bube drück mich'(hug me boy)), which was the women's organization in the Third Reich, analogous to the Hitlerjugend. That's why the symbols are 'gymnastic' — the Mädels did lots of sports (esp. gymwheels or 'Rhönrad' because it was supposed to increase their fertility, or so i was told).
587; "19th century European anarchist Mason"; Saverio Friscia, a doctor, along with Giuseppi Fanelli, Mikhail Bakunin, Carlos Gambuzzi, Bakunin's lawyer, and Alberto Tucci, founded the International Brotherhood ("anarchismo") in 1866, in Naples, Italy; See also Proudhon and Bakunin
Fritz
568; Pig-Hero Slothrop's 8-year-old assistant
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character first featured in a series of novels by English author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century and later extensively in cinema, television, radio, and comics.
- "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, ... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man." –The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
his mustache, 210; "Remember the eloquent words of Sir Denis Nayland Smith to young Alan Sterling, whose fiancée is in the clutches of the insidious yellow Adversary: "I have been through the sort of fires which are burning you now, Sterling, and I have always found that work was the best ointment for the burns."' 277; "you also [...] get to be Fu Manchu! eh? the one who has the young lady in his power!" 278; "Yellow Adversary" 751
Fu's Folly
65; chop suey joint in Cambridge, recalled by Slothrop; [The I Ching Connection]; [Fu first appeared as a member of the Whole Sick Crew in Pynchon's first novel, V.
This was the derogatory term used by the British for the Sudanese muslims (referring to their hair which was kinky) who were unified under the leadership of Mohammed Ahmed ibn Abdalla, who had declared himself the Mahdi (the "expected one"). Resisting the British forces who were aiding the Egyptians in their attempts to control southern Sudan, the "Mahdists" defeated the British at Khartoum in 1885 but were finally defeated by Lord Kitchener in 1898. Their bravery against the British, using spears against the British firearms, was memorialzed in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Fuzzy-Wuzzy". There's much about this in Pynchon's V.; "it was during [Pirate's] Kipling Period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies as far as the eye could see" 13
