SLSL Under the Rose - il semplice inglese

[Samuel Moyer]

102:14  Porpentine was called "il semplice inglese" by those who cared.

I think Porpentine is suffering a crisis.  Changing times have him thinking
back to simpler times.  His methods haven't changed.  They are simple.  He
keeps to the public paths and places, has an innocent expression - a child's
gaze.

I'd love to find some reason for why Pynchon might have placed Porpentine in
Naples in 1883, but all I can find is that a Baedeker Guide for Naples was
published that year... see: http://www.arduini.net/tools/itchron.htm

But this is where he, I assume the narrator is giving us Porpenine's
thoughts... this is where Porpentine believes they begin to follow him...
for fifteen years now he'd been trying to escape them.  Porpentine left
Brindisi the week before and hoped that he had made it to Alexandria without
there knowing...  I really come up with nothing interesting about Brindisi
in 1898 either...  I did find out that:

"From 1870 to 1914 it was the embarcation point for the "Indian Package",
the main communication line between Europe and the east Mediterranean."
http://www.inmedia.it/Puglia/eng/murge/brind.htm

Sam