C.17: aka Jack Degree

[Jasper Fidget]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of cfalbert
> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 9:36 AM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: C.17: aka Jack Degree
> 
> I should have emphasized the importance of "gradient".....
> 
> 
> love,
> cfa
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert at hslboxmaster.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 9:21 AM
> Subject: Re: C.17: aka Jack Degree
> 
> 
> > Do not neglect the link back to Pope's extensive play on the word
> > degree.....and the numerous definitions offered by Prof. Wood.....
> >
> >
> >
> > love,
> > cfa
> >
> >

Yes, "gradient" has some good polyvalence too:

"1. The degree of slope of a road, railway, etc.; amount of inclination to
the horizontal.  b. An inclined part of a road etc.; a slope.

2. An increase or decrease in the magnitude of a property, e.g. temperature,
pressure, concentration, etc., observed in passing from one point to
another; the rate of such a change." (OED)

Shade is shot while he and Kinbote climb a gradient toward the garden.

Also we learn somewhere that "grados" is Zemblan for tree.  I wonder how
that plays back on the gardener, whom K meets tending the Shakespeare trees
at Wordsmith and who ultimately stops Gradus in the garden?

Oh that too: the garden and the ravus rattlesnake for anyone looking toward
the biblical or Miltonic.

I should have noted the parallel grey/gray too: Jacques de Grey and James de
Gray.

And something else strange on pg 77: Gradus is raised by a "totally
unrelated" Alsatian merchant also named Gradus.  What to make of this, given
we've been warned against coincidence in favor of a "web of sense"?

Jasper