AtDtDA(34): When They Got Going Again ...

[Dave Monroe]

"When they got moving again, Reef was delighted at how easily this
baby took to being out on the road...." (AtD, Pt. IV, p. 954)


"'You're acting like she's your second chance'"

Why I Believe in Immortality
BY
WERNHER VON BRAUN
INVENTOR AND SPACE EXPERT

[...]

Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation!

Now, if God applies this fundamental principle to the most minute and
insignificant parts of His universe, doesn't it make sense to assume
that He applies it also to the masterpiece of His creation--the human
soul? I think it does. And everything science has taught me--and
continues to teach me--strengthens my belief in the continuity of our
spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/extra/von-braun.html

Pynchon soild his soul to the devil for his own inviolability, his
irrefutable alignment of all human endeavor on the axis of death.  He
is the artist of man's limitations, the best voise of a generation
whose great discovery was exactly the finite nature of all human
reality....

[...]

   The dream of vulnerability conquered is the dream of the age.
Pynchon has an unbeatable sensitivity to the evil that dream
contains....

http://harpers.org/archive/1975/03/0022215
http://www.vheissu.info/biblio/namen.php?p=252
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0806&msg=127178


Varna

Varna (Bulgarian: Варна) is the largest city and seaside resort on the
Bulgarian Black Sea Coast ...

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

Varna (वर्ण varṇa) is a Sanskrit term derived from the root vṛ meaning
"to enclose". Brahminic Hinduism categorizes the people into four
"Varnas" according to the body part of the divinity Purusha from which
each group was created (Rigveda 10.90) and these categories define the
group's social standing. Originally this division was based on the
social class but not always on birth....

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

Varna is a Sanskrit term (वर्ण varṇa has two meanings; first it means
"color"; and second it means a "veil". As a veil it shows the four
different ways in which the Divine Self is hidden in human beings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_in_Hinduism#Etymology


"the King's summer palace"

Euxinograd (Bulgarian: Евксиноград [ɛf.'ksi.nu.grat], also
transliterated as Evksinograd or Euxinograde) is a former late
19th-century Bulgarian royal summer palace and park on the Black Sea
coast, 8 km north of the city of Varna. It is currently a governmental
and presidential residence....

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


"ancient proverb"

?


"a postpartum folie à trois"

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

Folie à deux (literally, "a madness shared by two") is a rare
psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a
paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to
another. The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be
called folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie à famille or even folie à
plusieurs (madness of many)....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux

Folie à deux describes delusional behavior displayed by two people;
here it's by three. With folie à deux, the crucial point is that the
sum is more than the parts: behaviors or actions only occur because of
the two people interacting.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_946-975#Page_955


"The rest of the world were heading for cover"

1912 (invasion of Macedonia, First Balkan War, 963)

http://ic.ucsc.edu/~ksgruesz/ltel190f/PynchonGrid.htm


hebephrenic

Main Entry: he·be·phre·nia
Pronunciation: \ˌhē-bə-ˈfrē-nē-ə, -ˈfre-nē-\
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, irregular from Greek hēbētēs young adult (from
hēbē youth) + English -phrenia; from the childish behavior which is
often found with it
Date: 1883
: a form of schizophrenia characterized especially by incoherence,
delusions lacking an underlying theme, and affect that is usually
flat, inappropriate, or silly
— he·be·phre·nic  \-ˈfre-nik, -ˈfrē-nik\ adjective or noun

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hebephrenia


"as if blindly obeying a compass fatally sensitive to anomaly"

Cf. Profane, Maas, Slothrop, Wheeler, Mason and Dixon ...


"branches," "rapotors"

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:DVinfernoForestOfSuicides_m.jpg