SSTetc ch 36 names check // attitude change?

[Mark Kohut]

Woodrow Wilson, not much if at all in other novels, isan overt, named
inspiration by President Donald Trump now. The Tariffs and other things..

On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 11:26 PM Michael Bailey via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

>
> Who appears in chapter 36?
>
> Bruno - a lot
>
> Woodrow Wilson - passim, that he considered Fiume as a site for League of
> Nations HQ; his mention by historical novelist Pynchon, like all the
> mentions of historical personages, conjures probably as much connotation
> and associations as one could imagine - maybe even more than that. One drop
> of Woodrow Wilson in the milkshake that is ch 36 - or, maybe it's more like
> a loaf of rye bread...bringing his name into it like a caraway seed, like
> other historical names elsewhere, adding an unmistakable savor when one
> chances to bite into one.
>
> Daphne - so she got flown into town by that gyrocopter woman
>
> D'Annunzio - caraway seed (or, perhaps, something less savory)
>
> Hicks - well, yeah...
>
> Terike - biker woman
>
> Ace - biker man
>
> Vladboys - dangerous bikers
>
> Porfirio del Vasto - he's some kind of wacky duellist, Hicks interacted
> with him on the ship Stupendica
>
> Lady Forsythia Bladesmith - obvs fict, right?
>
> Apollo Granforte - caraway seed; a real-life opera baritone singer
> 1886-1975
>
> Scarpia - character in the opera Tosca
>
> Zoltan van Kiss - apport/asport guy here to converse with Hicks & Ace
> about baseball?!
>
> Praediger - his indulgence in cocaine shown in spectacular, comic-opera
> fashion
>
> Stuffy Keegan - he and U-13 possible recipients of purloined cocaine?
>
> Hitler - caraway seed (wormwood sprig?); newsreel image of the dictator
> fussing with his hair
>
> Hop Wingdale - he's from one of the middle chapters - or is he the
> clarinet klezmer guy?
>
>
> Okay, wait, so Bruno - he owns the villa where apparently everybody
> including Praediger is partying heartily.
>
> I love this description: "...early departures from the all-night
> jollification, the reluctant, the fugitive and piratical, and later,
> emerging somehow untouched into the yet unbroken day, bickering in
> whispers, looking around for their shoes, even a few drowsy advertisements
> for love at first sight." — It's a grammatically lovely sentence.
>
> Also, it continues the vagueness so prevalent in ch 36: Ace and Bruno are
> walking away from the villa, which normally might take a couple minutes,
> and yet the 3 groups of people they walk through would be spaced hours
> apart: "the reluctant" who one imagines  came with a bolder friend & leave
> quite early; "the fugitive and piratical" who stayed until they caught
> sight of their pursuers (the fugitive) or until they found something worth
> stealing (the piratical) - but then those happy few, the "drowsy
> advertisements for love at first sight" barefoot, they must've been quite a
> bit later, having already canoodled & formed a bond -
>
>  And I mean, Bruno, it's his villa.  He's, I guess, fleeing Praediger, who
> will eventually sober up and twig to his chance to apprehend the AC of C?
>
> Ace ends up driving him to the Hotel Bonavia - but it takes quite a while
> to get from the villa to the parking place of Ace's "combination." (bike +
> sidecar, from context)
>
> I can only think that Ace and Bruno's convo in the parking lot is one of
> those long, intricate ones I've sometimes witnessed or even participated
> in...and indeed, Ace who just a little earlier was threatening to behead
> Bruno over 200 quid for the latter's part in the loss of Ace's lost
> Harley...
> ...settles for telling Bruno he'll be billed ... maybe Ace feels a surfeit
> of schadenfreude after turns down Bruno's job offer, and Bruno's
> who-knows-how-serious offer of his daughter's hand in marriage - it's like
> Bruno is rapidly coming down in the world and grasping at straws.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>