Pynchoniana in the Berkshires

[severs at fas.harvard.edu]

Dave's quotes make me want to ask: I'm going out to the Berkshires for the first
time this week, planning to see the Melville house in Pittsfield, and wondering
if anyone familiar with the area and Pynchon could say if there are any
landmarks a GR fan should make a point of seeing.  It's been a while since I
tracked through the Slothrop family history, and I only remember the paper
company and E. Dickinson references...

Thanks, all.

Jeff



Quoting Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com>:

> "'By golly,' Slothrop a little bit nervous, 'it's the
> Specter.' You got it up around Greylock in the
> Berkshires too. Around these parts it is known as the
> Brockengespenst.
>    "God-shadows. Slothrop raises an arm. His fingers
> are cities, his biceps is a province-of course he
> raises an arm. Isn't it expected of him? The
> arm-shadow trails rainbows behind as it rainbows
> behind as it moves reaching eastward for a grab at
> Göttingen. Not ordinary shadows,
> either-three-dimensional ones, cast out on the German
> dawn, yes and Titans had to live in these mountains,
> or under them.... Impossibly out of scale...." (GR,
> Pt. II, p. 330)
>
> "... and through the blonde hair of the victim here's
> a Brocken-specter, someone's, something's shadow
> projected from out here in the bright sun and
> darkening sky into the regions of gold, of whitening,
> of growing still as underwater as Gravity dips away
> briefly ..." (GR, Pt. IV, p. 759)
>
>
> Brocken
> 329; mountain 20 miles NW of Mittelwerke in the Harz
> Mountains; "plexus of German evil"; place where
> God-shadows ("Brockengespenstphänomen" - p.331) occur
> at sunrise, 330; specter, 759
>
> http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html
>
> *V330.29 it’s the Specter
> Another reference gleaned from The Berkshire Hills,
> where Pynchon very likely first discovered the
> Brockengespenst: "Of the stories and legends about Old
> Greylock, the one about the "Specter" is most popular.
> . . . The phenomenon of a gigantic shadow of an object
> reflected in a cloud is so well known as to have a
> German name, Brockengespenst (Specter of the Brocken)
> from Brocken, the highest peak of the Hartz [sic]
> Mountains. As Greylockgespenst would be a bit unwieldy
> for Berkshire, here it is simply called the Specter"
> (TBH 42). Mount Greylock is the highest point in
> Massachusetts.
>
> http://www.english.mnsu.edu/larsson/gr3.html
>
> Specter of the Brocken
>
> http://www.meteoros.de/glorie/br2.jpg
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocken_bow
>
> http://www.meteoros.de/glorie/gloriee.htm
>
> http://www.polarization.com/rainbow/rainbow2.html
>
> http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=489195
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(optical_phenomenon)
>
> http://www.sacklunch.net/mythology/S/SpecteroftheBrocken.html
>
> http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/corona.html#c6
>
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