AtdTDA: [38] p. 1071 A Certain Word

[Mark Kohut]

Why does TRP capitalize Word?.........






--- On Sun, 8/10/08, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: AtdTDA: [38] p. 1071 A Certain Word
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Sunday, August 10, 2008, 11:30 AM
> 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