VV(11): Some Clue
Dave Monroe
davidmmonroe at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 14 14:36:34 CST 2001
"Stencil toured one plant out on Long Island. Among instruments of war, he
reasoned, some clue to the cabal might show up. It did." (V., Ch. 8, Sec.
iv, p. 227)
"he reasoned"--"by instinct"? "He only felt [...] when a bit of information
was useful, when not" (p. 226) ...
"a region of offices, drafting boards, blueprint files" (p. 227)
>From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ...
http://m-w.com
Main Entry: re·gion
Pronunciation: 'rE-j&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin region-,
regio, from regere to rule
Date: 14th century
1: an administrative area, division, or district; especially: the basic
administrative unit for local government in Scotland
2 a : an indefinite area of the world or universe <few unknown regions
left on earth> ...
Note overtones of politics, intrigue ...
"sitting half hidden in a forest of file cabinets" (p. 227)
2 b: a broad geographical area distinguished by similar features <the
Appalachian region> c (1): a major world area that supports a characteristic
fauna (2): an area characterized by the prevalence of one or more
vegetational climax types
"Mondaugen" (p. 227) = moon eyes
"balding and porcine" (p. 227) = moon head, moon body
3 a: any of the major subdivisions into which the body or one of its
parts is divisible b: an indefinite area surrounding a specified
body part <a pain in the region of the heart>
"uniform-of-the-day" (p. 227)--tres militaire-industrial, non?
"he had worked, yes, at Peenemunde, developing Vergeltungswaffe Eins and
Zwei" (pp. 227-8)--i.e., Vengeance-Weapons 1 and 2 ...
http://www.v2rocket.com/
Beon, Yves. Planet Dora: A Memoir of the
Holocaust and the Birth of the Space Age.
Trans. Richard L. Fague. Boulder, CO:
Westview, 1997.
Dornberger, Walter. V-2. New York: Viking, 1954.
Neufeld, Michael J. The Rocket and the Reich:
Peenemunde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile
Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996 [1994]
Wegener, Peter P. The Peenemunde Wind Tunnels:
A Memoir. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1996.
4: a sphere of activity or interest: FIELD
http://members.aol.com/InfDiv104/CONCAMP.HTM
http://web.mit.edu/mindell/www/peenemunde.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/7087/uk017.htm
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t060/t06000.html
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/History/vonBraun/Visit/Visit.html
5: any of the zones into which the atmosphere is divided according to height
or the sea according to depth
"The magic initial!" (p. 228)--i.e., V. ...
"an abominable imitation of Munich beer" (p. 228)--as in, "Hall Putsch"? Hm
...
"Stencil listened attentively. The tale proper and the questions after took
no more than thirty minutes. Yet the next Wednesday afternoon at
Eigenvalue's office, when Stencil retold it, the yarn had undergone
considerable change had become, as Eigenvalue put it, Stenclized." (p. 228)
6: an open connected set together with none, some, or all of the points on
its boundary <a simple closed curve divides a plane into two regions>
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