Sm-Sz
Smaragd, Generaldirektor
164-66; (German: "Emerald"); Nazi with IG Farben; "from Leverkusen. An elderly man who used a cane, a notorious spiritualist before the War" 486
smegma
"layers, over a base of bureaucratic smegma" 18; "Tchitcherine has found it necessary to abandon his smegma-gathering stake-out on the Argentine anarchists" 700;
Smile, Murray
255; appears in Slothrop's dream as "next to you in basic, company 84"; Etymology: Murray Wilson was Brian Wilson's father; Tom hung out with Brian during the legendary "Smile" Period — Pynchon and Brian Wilson
Smithfield Market
Famous meat market in the old City of London. During the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation it was used as a place of execution; where Lucifer Amp "makes a spectacle of himself" every day, 542
Smith, Klein, 'n' French
518; "Enzian, Andreas, and Christian, coming on like"
Smith, Sir Denis Nayland
See Sir Denis Nayland-Smith
Snade, Mrs.
169; "wrote in to the Times from Luton Hoo, Bedfrdshire" regarding Gwenhidwy's singing voice
Snake
342-43; Tchitcherine's horse (methodically homicidal; unpredictable); Gretel's (Greta Erdmann's) co-star in Weisse Sandwuste von Neumexiko, 482
Snipe and Shaft
9; Slothrop's and Tantivy's watering hole; 19; 21
Snodd, Mrs.
744; in Mingeborough, MA
snowdrops
247; Slang for GI military police in WWII; 601
Snoxall's
32; place where seances are held; 33; 37; 238
Sodium Amytal
61; truth serum; used on Slothrop; induces "toilet"/Kenosha Kid episode; used on von Göll, 511-14; 746
5; Special Operations Executive; aka the "Firm" 12; 32; Pirate "browned-off with" 270; "no one has ever left the Firm alive" 543; 620; [About]
Solange603; German: "as long as" "while" compare etymologies with Mrs. Quoad; "masseuse" at Putzi's See also Pökler, Leni
Somerset Club
28; exclusive club "no Slothrop ever made it into"
Son of Frankenstein
106; The third film in Universal Studios' Frankenstein series and the last to feature Boris Karloff as the Monster as well as the first to feature Bela Lugosi as Ygor.
Sooty
174; Jessica's cat; 177
Sound-Shadow
"the silences here are retreats of sound [...] sound draining away, down slopes of acoustic passage, to gather, someplace else, to a great surge of noise" 336-37; "a very shallow pocket of no-sound, [...] sound-energy from Outside is shut off. The roaring of the sun stops. [...] the arousing feather-point of the Sound-Shadow has touched you, enveloping you in sun-silence" 695; "this subversive use of sudden fff quieting to ppp. It's the touch of the wandering sound-shadow, the Brennschluss of the Sun." 711
sour stuff
240; oxygen; the German word for oxygen is "Sauerstoff"
Spaniols
549; Spaniards
Sparks
732; aka Ozohande, with Enzian
Sparte IV
630; "Slothrop surveillance being assigned to a newly created 'Sparte IV' under Vermittlungsstelle W"
Spectro, Dr. Kevin
46; "neurologist and casual Pavlovian" at St. Veronica's; "one of the original seven owners of The Book" 47; killed in a V-2 hit on St. Veronica's, 138; 139; 140; 167
Speed, Harvey
270; SEZ WHO Englishman hired by Pointsman to check out Slothrop's sexual conquests; See also Perdoo, Floyd; SEZ WHO
Speer, Albert (d. 1981)
298; Architect for the Third Reich; "in charge of the New German Architecture then, and later he went on to become Minister of Munitions, and nominal chief customer for the A4"; "Albert Speer Touch" 298; Ölsch designing Nordhausen factory, 411; and Toiletship, 448; "alabaster open-air stadium with giant cement birds" 687
SPOG
272; Special Projectiles Operations Group of which Operation Backfire is a part; 391; 595; 601
Spontoon, Doctor
591; with Dr. Muffage, out to castrate Slothrop; has a black spade on his cheek
SPOG
391; Special Projectiles Operations Group
455; aerodynamics person on S-Gerät project; ignores Khlaetsch's cries for help, 684; Etymological Musings
Spottbilligfilm AG
163; German: "spottbillig" = "dirt cheap"; subsidiary of IG Farben "whose entire management are about to be purged for sending to OKW weapons procurement a design proposal for a new airborne ray which could turn whole populations [...] blind"; "from whom von Göll used to get cut rates on most of his film stock" 387;
SPQR
135; Latin: senatus populusque Romanus = the senate and the people of Rome; also acronym for small profits, quick returns
S.P.R.
153; Society for Psychical Research; 633;
Spree-Oder Canal
433; in the Russian sector of Berlin, where Slothrop & Margherita stay; 457 [MAP]
376; German: "chess knight"; aka von Göll; the "Knight who leaps perpetually across the chessboard of the Zone"; white plastic chess knight (his symbol), 436; "white knight of the black market" 492; described, 494; aka Herr Gemütlich ("good-natured"), 496; on Sodium Amytal, 512, 514, 746; See also Göll, Gerhardt von; Etymological Musings...
Sprudelhof
458; German: "Spring or Well" + "Yard" or "Palace"; main drag of Bad Karma on the Spree-Oder Canal; 476
Sprue, Amy
329-30; Tyrone's ancestor who was a "genuine Salem Witch"
Squalidozzi, Francisco
263; Argentine exile, paranoid about Peronists; hijacked German U-Boat in Mar de Plata; his group (incl. Graciela Portales) seeking political exile in Germany after the War; want open spaces--no fences; meets von Göll in abandoned harmonica factory, 384; "Old Squalidozzi, ploughman of the deep" 447; 613; being sought by Slothrop, 681
ss
"cast-iron pulleys whose spokes are shaped like Ss" 4; 3-sigma, 40, 523, 635, 709; "sibilant weave" 152; "S'd against the S of himself" 198; "Old Norse rune for S" 206; ssörrender, 230; sour stuff (oxygen), 240; Esso, 240; tunnels, 299; double-integral sign, 300-01; "Summe, Summe" 300; "Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep" 302; S-curve, 380; double-summing, 411; Scatotechnic Snipes, 451; Sickly Smile, 534; Special Services, 558; Shufflin' Sam, 558; "curving through the ogival opening" 573; "Yess, yess" 590; "silver straw" 613; "screen-door salesman" 665; "the invisible SS" 666; Sniveling Slothrop, 679; Scatterbrained Suicidekicks, 691; Sound Shadow, 695, 711; Sentimental Surrealist, 696; Subsequent Sin, 722; Spaceman Smile, 732; See also chess; Rossini
Stage Door Canteen
134; During World War II, the American Theatre Wing ran New York's Stage Door Canteen for the benefit of soldiers on leave. It was frequented by many stars, some of whom graciously performed menial tasks, while others entertained the crowd. Dozens of those celebrities appear as themselves in this lavish musical about romances that blossom between canteen employees and soldiers. The film The Stage Door Canteen (1943), starring Katharine Hepburn, is set there.
Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953)
Stalin was expelled from the Tiflis Theological Seminary for being a Marxist. He joined the Bolsheviks and was arrested and sent to Siberia from whence he escaped in 1904. From being general secretary to the Central Committee under Lenin in 1922, he became Soviet leader in 1924 upon Lenin's death. He was a brutal dictator whose purges resulted in the deaths of millions as well as the suppression of artistic expression in Russia; "during the Stalin days, Tchitcherine was stationed in a remote 'bear's corner'" 338; "conspiracy to hit Stalin in the face with a grape chiffon pie" 353; "big chromo of" in Berlin, 368; 373; "Even Stalin's had [doubts]" 703
Statue of Liberty
The colossal statue on Liberty Island in the Upper Bay of New York Harbour, U.S., was a gift from France commemorating the friendship of the peoples of the U.S. and France. The statue, designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Barthold, is constructed of copper sheets which are assembled on a framework of steel supports designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. For transit to America, the figure was disassembled into 350 pieces and packed in 214 crates. Four months later, it was reassembled on Bedloe's Island (renamed Liberty Island in 1956). It was dedicated by President Cleveland on October 28,1886; 637
Sterling, Alan
277; fiancé of Fleurette who was raised from birth to carry on the monstrous line of the emperor of the underworld, Fu Manchu; Alan Sterling, young orchid-hunter, first saw her on the little French beach and knew that he had never seen anyone more beautiful; he's also portrayed as the love-suffering young man receiving eloquent advice from Sir Denis Nayland-Smith.
Stettin
293; 408; 418; [MAP]
Steve
449: Charles' "colleague" on the Toiletship
Stickstoff Syndikat
580; Jamf "getting Weimar to subsidize the IG's";
Stick, Joaquin
9; at Pirate's maisonette
Stiletto May
129; character conjured by the presence of the black man in choir at the Advent service attended by Roger and Jessica
Stinnes, Hugo
about, 284; "Bland either saw the Stinnes crash coming before most of its other victims, or was just naturally nervous. Early in '23 he began to sell off his interests in the Stinnes operations." 285-86; "'Schwindel' was [Jamf's] code name for Hugo Stinnes." 286; "Stinnes, like every industrial emperor, had his own company spy system." 286; "You were meant to think of Hugo Stinnes, the tireless operator behind the scenes of apparent Inflation, apparent history: gambler, financial wizard, archgangster...a fussy bürgerlich mouth, jowls, graceless moves, a first impression of comic technocracy" 579; "Fibel worked for Siemens back when it was still part of the Stinnes trust." 587; Sasuly's IG Farben
Stodda
406; "treatise on steam turbines" studied by Pökler at Peenemünde in '38
Stonybloke, Will
65; friend of Slothrop's who appears in toilet adventure
Sträggeli
258; listed under "Espionage, Industrial" on the list of Zürich cafés, where Slothrop meets Mario Schweitar; 268;
Stralsund
532; "Semlower Strasse in" 692;
streets
692; "Semlower Strasse in Stralsund"; "Hafenstrasse in Greifswald"; "Slüterstrasse in the old part of Rostock"; "Wandfärberstrasse in Lüneburg";
Stresemann, Gustav (1878-1929)
452; German statesman who entered the Reichtag in 1907, rose to prominance leading the National Liberal Party and eventually, for a few months in 1923, was chancellor of the new German (Weimar) Republic. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926; "'They pray not only for their daily bread [he said] but also for their daily illusion'"
Strobe
89; "Strobe's stimulus" appeared in early Viking editions of Gravity's Rainbow, but was quickly changed to "Jamf's stimulus"; apparently "Strobe" was an early working name for "Jamf"
Stuggles, Constable
73; tried to stop LeFroyd from jumping off cliff; 74
Südwest
99; German colony from 1892 until1915 when it was taken by South African forces during WWI. It was made a Protectorate of South-West Africa under the League of Nations; now called Namibia, it was under South African control until 1990 when it gained its independence. [MORE]; [MAP]
Sue, Eugene (1804-57)
13; "a Eugene Sue melodrama"
- Parisian journalist, called the "king of the popular novel," one of the most widely read writers of melodramatic fiction in the 19th-century France. Sue was sponsored by Prince Eugène de Beauharnais and the empress Joséphine; he used the prince's name to form his famous pen name. Sue gained fame through the roman-feuilleton, the serial novel which gained its height in the French periodical press in the 1840's. Sue's republican and socialist views are reflected in his best-known novels, Les Mystères de Paris (1842-43), set in the Paris slums, and Le Juif errant (1844-45), published in installments for Le Constitutionnel in 1842-1843.
The above is from this excellent online biography.
Suggenthal
269;
Sundial
472; cartoon character
surface
"she fears the Change, choosing instead only trivially to revise what matters least, ornament and clothing, going no further than politic transvestism" 97; "lust in the face--the mask--of instant talion" 100; "house is outward-and-visible sign" 448;
sus. per coll. crowd
329; In the English practice, a calendar is made out of attainted criminals, and the judge signs the calendar with their separate judgments in the margin. In the case of a capital felony. it is written opposite the prisoner's name, "let him be hanged by the neck," which, when the proceedings were in Latin, was, "suspendatur per collum," or, in the abbreviated form, "sus' per coll'."
Suso, Heinrich (1295-1336)
129; German mystic and preacher. His composition In Dulci Jubilo is a German/Latin macaronic carol (Pynchon (mis)spells it "macronic" and (mis)dates it as "fifteenth century"); the first verse (of four), quoted in GR, can be translated as follows:
- In dulci jubilo (In sweet Joy)
- Sing and shout all below!
- He for whom we're pining
- Lies in praesepio (In a manger)
- Like the sun is shining
- Matris in gremio. (In His mothers lap.)
- Qui est A et O. (Who is Alpha and Omega.)
- In Dulci Jubilo Web Page
Suvorov
350; Rozhdestvenski's flagship on which Tchitcherine's father was a gunner
Swanlake, Jessica
30; "young rosy girl in the uniform of an ATS private" who has wartime affair with Roger Mexico; at Snoxall's seance, 30-34; meets Mexico, 38-39; Fay Wray look, 57; girlfriend of Jeremy "Old Beaver" 121; 627; "Her future is with the World's own" 629; working for Pointsman, 631; 640; hardened toward Mexico, 708-09
174-77; Jessica's sister; late husband was Keith; kids: Penelope (also p.277), Claire, Elizabeth
Swinemünde
459: a town in NW Poland, on the island of Usedom, at the mouth of the Swina River. It is the outer port for Szczecin (Polish name for "Stettin") and a fishing center and seaside resort. First mention of the town dates from 1181. During World War II, the town was a German naval base.
Swope, Gerard (1872-1957)
Swope, president of the General Electric Company (1922-39; 1942-44) in the United States, greatly expanded GE's line of consumer products and pioneered profit-sharing and other benefits programs for its employees. After his retirement from GE in 1939, he chaired the New York City Housing Authority until 1942; "was ace buddies with old FDR [...] one-thim Brain Trusters" 565; "Business Advisory Council set up under Swope of General Electric, whose ideas on matters of 'control' ran close to those of Walter Rathenau, of German GE" 581;
Sztup, Mme.
463; Yiddish: "poke" or "fuck"; passenger on the Anubis
