MD3PAD 19-21

[Ghetta Life]

>From: Toby G Levy <tobylevy at juno.com>
>
>The Learned English Dog finishes his song and people call out "requests."  
>The first asks if the Dog knows "Where the Bee Sucks?" This is a quote from 
>Shakespeare's "The Tempest" spoken by Ariel after he is set free by 
>Prospero.  The next request is "What is the integral of One over (Book) d 
>(Book)?" This translates out to log(book).  What any of this means in the 
>context of the novel escapes me.

Quite often Pynchon throws out obscure plays on words, and more often than 
not they are just one-liners - no deeper meaning related to the story being 
told.

>vw#4: Metempsychosis - transmigration of souls; reincarnation.

Of course this word has been made famous in Joyce's Ulyssess, chapter 4 - 
Calypso.  This the one chapter in the book where Bloom and Molly have a 
conversation.  Thus it would have relevance to the loss of a wife.:

-----------------------
He stooped and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the 
bulge of the orange-keyed chamberpot.

-- Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to ask 
you.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having 
wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with 
the hairpin till she reached the word.

-- Met him what? he asked.

-- Here, she said. What does that mean?

He leaned downwards and read near her polished thumbnail.

-- Metempsychosis?

-- Yes. Who's he when he's at home?

-- Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That means 
the transmigration of souls.

-- O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.
--------------------------------------------

>Mason and Dixon go outside and locate the dog. While following the dog down 
>the street, they are accosted by a sailor from The Seahorse who somehow 
>recognizes them as upcoming passengers. He identifies himself as 
>Fender-Belly Bodine, clearly an earlier incarnation of the Pig Bodine that 
>figures prominently in Pynchon's other novels.

I just loked up "fender" and found this meaning, which fits with the sailor 
theme, as well as "pig"-belly:

5. protective cushion: an inflatable cylinder, rubber tire, or something 
similar, hung over the side of a vessel to protect it from rubbing against a 
pier or another ship

Ghetta

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