AtdTDA: [38] p. 1071 A Certain Word

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Mark Kohut:
          Yes, the case that that certain word not yet spoken is 
          "Fascism" is strong, as some wiki poster has posited.

          But is it what TRP meant?.....any other possible words? 

Not likely, he's rather specific on pages 1068 thru 1074 when 
the Spirit of Ecstasy is drown and Reef is "obliterated" by a 
kind crypto-Anarchist.

>From Chumps of Choice:

          Dally...well...dallies, is I guess how you'd put it, with Crouchmas, 
          and Kit ain't happy about it. With his pal Renzo, a maniac pilot 
          who's working on the nascent concept of dive-bombing as a 
          military tactic, he buzzes the restaurant where his kitten 
          canoodles* with Crouchmas, a scene in which the diving plane 
          goes so fast that "something happened to time, and maybe they'd 
          slipped into the Future, the Future known to Italian Futurists, with 
          events superimposed on one another..."

          Kit, our flashback continues, went up with Renzo for some more 
          of those dive-bombing runs, most notably against a workers' strike, 
          helping to crush it. During the run, he has a "velocity-given 
          illumination. It was all political." The dive-bombing was "perhaps the 
          first and purest expression in northern Italy of a Certain Word that 
          would not quite exist for another year or two." 
          (Fascism. Hence the Futurist reference earlier.)

. . . .But it's not just the Futurist citation, there's

          "You saw how they broke apart," Renzo said later. "But we did 
          not. We remained single, aimed, unbreakable. Um vettore, si?"

          Etymology

          The term fascismo was brought into popular usage by the Italian 
          founders of Fascism, Benito Mussolini and the Neo-Hegelian 
          philosopher Giovanni Gentile. It is derived from the Italian 
          word fascio, which means "bundle" or "union", and from the 
          Latin word fasces.  The fasces, which consisted of a bundle 
          of rods tied around an axe, were an ancient Roman symbol of 
          the authority of the civic magistrates; they were carried by his 
          Lictors and could be used for corporal and capital punishment 
          at his command. Furthermore, the symbolism of the fasces 
          suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, 
          while the bundle is difficult to break. This is a familiar 
          theme throughout different forms of fascism; for example the 
          Falange symbol is a bunch of arrows joined together by a yoke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

>From the Pynchonwiki:

          Um vettore, si?

          Um is a slurred form of un. Italian: A vector, yes? Actually, even 
          though it is always written "un" in the Italian national standard 
          (many dialects still exist), in front of words that start with "v" or 
          "f", the "n" in "un" is sounded as a nasalized "m." (In front of 
          words that start with "b" or "p" the "n" in "un" is simply 
          pronounced like "m.")

And:

         KIt risked a look over at Renzo, demented even when at rest, and 
         saw that here, approaching the speed of sound, he was being 
         metamorphosed into something else . . . a case of possession. 
         Kit had a velocity-given illumination then. It was all political.

Also from the Pynchon Wiki:

         a Certain Word that would not quite exist for another year or two

         Of course it's "Fascism." "It was all political." Politics through 
         aerobatics instead of chemistry?. . . 

More [but you knew already, eh MK?] @

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1063-1085#Page_1071