AtD-13

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Also, the Frank Merriwell books -- written in the late 19th century.  A specific reference to them at some point in the book.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Anville Azote <anville.azote at gmail.com>
>Sent: Nov 22, 2006 10:27 AM
>To: the Robot Vegetable <veg at dvandva.org>
>Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: AtD-13
>
>On 11/21/06, the Robot Vegetable <veg at dvandva.org> wrote:
>>         First impression makes me want to go see if the
>> Chums of Chance books were written by Thomas Appleton [1].
>> A marvelous mix of geewhizbang patter, seasoned to era,
>> with an erudite mixture of tech with the preposterous.
>> (Perpetual motion indeed! More like an asymptotic
>> catastrophe!)
>[snip]
>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift
>>
>
>I had the exact same impression.  (Just to be clear, **Victor**
>Appleton was the collective pseudonym of the Tom Swift writers, but
>the portmanteau name works plenty well here!)  The references in the
>narrative flow to other books in the Chums of Chance series are very
>Swiftian.
>
>Tom Swift references hark back to Grover the boy genius of "The Secret
>Integration", who keeps finding Tom Swift books planted around his
>house and can't tell whether his parents are trying to make him into
>an inventor or a racist.
>
>And while I'm listing hyperlinks to other parts of the Pynternet, I
>should mention that last night I spotted a ukulele player going back
>to the tonic and waiting (Takeshi in VL), plus the White City
>detective chief giving the etymology of "delirium" as "unfurrowed"
>(TCL49).  The Traverse family's Fourth of July skyrockets evoke
>Brenschluss without doubt.  I'm sure I noticed more in the 200 pages I
>devoured, but I'm sending this message during my procrastination time
>at work and I don't have the book with me.
>
>-A. A.