Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (1997)
Read Professor Irwin Corey's acceptance speech for Pynchon's 1974 National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow.
Also, have a look at Douglas Kløvedal Lannark's exhaustive documenting of "love" in Gravity's Rainbow.
A
Aberration of Light
160; In 1729, Dr. Bradley published his discovery of the aberration of light, providing the first observational proof of the Copernican hypothesis that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not vice versa); [Explanation];173; 181; 188; See alsoBradley, Dr. James
Abdul
148; at World's End
Accompts
456
Acta Thomae
511; The Acts of Thomas: the legendary accounts of the deeds of the apostle Judas Thomas (probably the Judas Didymos Thomas of the Gospel of Thomas), telling of Thomas' missionary journeys east to Parthia and eventually to India. In these adventuresome tales, Thomas preaches the values of asceticism and gnosis as the path to salvation. Its "heretical" status seems to come mainly from the gnosticism it propounds; it's known to have been used by certain Manichean sects; [TEXT]
Acupuncture
563; Elephant's meridians
Adam & Eve
615
Adolphus
711
Aesop
350;
Aether
307
Afrikaner
153; Dutch settler of South Africa
Age of Reason
22; aka the 18th century, a period of enlightenment when philosophy was all the rage in Europe; 27; 134; 135; 164; 359; 438; 769
Agents of Altitude
142
Alarum Ridge
131
Alchemist
Tales, 594
Ale-jack
457; "sauc'd with the lees of some ale-jack and the Pipe-ash therein": lee is the swill at the bottom of a bottle, or in this case, jack; jack (archaic) is a liquor container made of waxed leather, sometimes coated with tar; pipe ash would be the sediment at the bottom of a "pipe" or cask of liquor.
Aleppo
169; 251
Alexander
249; "fight like"; 551
Alexandria, Library at
423
Algernon
22
Algol
310; Latitude star, called the Demon or Ghoul Star. Its magnitude varies over a period of 2.87 days, due to it being an eclipsing binary system, i.e., the cooler star eclipses the hotter brighter companion; 770
Alioth
468; The brightest star in Ursa Major; Flamsteed was first to list it; 655
Allègre, Armand
366; [punning name]; "volatile Chef de Cuisine; and the Mechanickal Duck, 371
Allegheny Ridge-Line
277
Ethan AllenAllen, Mr.
266; Writer David Dark speculates that Pynchon may well be referring to Ethan Allen (1738-1789), the folk-hero of Vermont, a flamboyant farmer-turned-statesman from Connecticutt who led the Green Mountain Boys, a citizen's militia formed to protect the interests of the farmers and citizens of Vermont from dominance and taxation by New York. He went on the fight in the Revolutionary War and a guiding spirit in the taking of Fort Ticonderoga, the first Crown property to fall to America.
All-Nations Coffee-House
299; in Philadelphia
Alphonso, Sinister
439
Altitude of Shaula
71; a star, Scorpii (Shaula); 72
Amelia
399; a "Milk-Maid of Brooklyn" whom Mason meets; runs off with "Italian Waggon-smith" 564; [Etymological Musings]
America
bugs, 293; 294; 345; 346; "all boundaries shall be eras'd" 406; 448; kept hidden, 487; Golem, 490; 511; 522; "little but faith" 543; "Americans All" 571; love of complexity, 586; "first Act of American murder" 634; 685; 693; 754; New York is American Sodom, 770
Amok
86; 140
Anacreon In Heaven
Anchor-Pool
729; "Swab who holds the"
André
308
Angelo
25
Angels
451
Animalcula
204; Latin: plural of animalculum, dim of animal = a small, tiny, or microscopic animal
Animism & Speaking Creatures
Learnéd English Dog, 18; St. Helena, 182; 189; bread, 204; shoes, 239; fog, 243; 292; Dixon's watch, 321 (the guy who really swallowed Dixon's clock!); Duck, 372; 448; Golem, 485; Web of Communication, a "single great branch'd Creature" 567; dogs, 644; Beet, 657; talking crocodile, 573; 624; Topiary Elephant, 722; Stars, 731
Anne, Queen (1665-1714)
189; daughter of James II, and queen of England and Ireland from 1702
Anson, Baron George (1697-1762)
32; First Lord of Admiralty 1751-56 and 1757-62
Anthony & Cleopatra
451
Antietam
496; Creek near which the famous Civil War battle took place (aka Battle of Sharpsburg) runs south from the line about 10 miles west of the Blue Ridge Summit near Waynesboro. (ad) The Battle of Antietam was extremely bloody, and inconclusive. It won Gen. Joseph Hooker his nickname "Fighting Joe." Camp followers of Hooker's Massachusetts division were called "Hooker's girls," or simply "hookers."
Anti-Etesian Wind
129
Antimony
196: from Latin "antimonium": chemical symbol (Sb) from Latin "stibium"; Recognised by ancients in compounds, known as a metal by about the beginning of the 17th c.; apparently very brittle with flaky, crystalline texture and metallic luster
Anti-Proprietarians
328
Arabian Gardens
426; at Lepton Castle; 430
Archie
712
Arcs &c.
297; 337; 335; 413; 425; 529; 578; 581; 639
Aristarchus of Samos (fl.270 BC)
17; Alexandrian astronomer who anticipated Copernicus, maintaining that the Earth moves around the sun
Aristotle
559; "On Comedy" is a famous lost work of Aristotle's.
Arne, Thomas Augustine (1710-72),
292; prolific composer whose most well known work is probably "Rule Britannica" but, now, Love in a Cottage
Asaph
568; "ecclesiastickal-looking Personage" in Montague's in New York
Assizes
236: O.E.D.: The sessions held periodically in each county of England for the purpose of administering civil and criminal justice by judges acting under certain special commissions.
Asymmetrick Principle
142
Astrology
98-99; 102; 107; 136-39; 144; 180; 221; 269; 315; 321; Chinese, 486, 707; 494-95; 544; "Taurean stubborness" 560; Aries, 608; "an extra sign of the Zodiack" 630; Leo, 726; Zodiackal Glyph, 731; 765; "Taurean persistence" 768; 770
Atlantick Company
713; imagined Atlantick Line's Proprietor
Attila (c.406-453)
488; King of the Huns, aka "the scourge of God," and the most successful of the barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire. From 434 he extorted tribute from the Eastern and Western Roman emperors. In 450 Marcian of the East and Valentinian III of the West refused to pay. Valentinian's sister Honoria proposed an alliance with Attila, who took this as a marriage offer and demanded half the Western empire as dowry. Refused, he attacked Gaul but was defeated (451) by the Romans. He invaded (452) Italy but spared Rome, apparently because of a shortage of supplies and an outbreak of pestilence in his army. Although feared for his savagery, he was a just ruler.
Aurora Borealis
726
Austra
65; Vrooms' slave-girl; 150; 419; 427
Automata
Duck, 372-80; 535; "Frederick's rank'd" 659; Oboe player, 669; mechanickal cuckoo, 727; Website on Gallery of Automata
Avebury
595; "Serpent-mound which is at Avebury"; Neolithic (New Stone Age) structure there consists of a circular bank of chalk 1,400 feet (425 m) in diameter and 20 feet (6 m) high, faced by chalk blocks quarried from a 30-foot- (9-metre-) deep ditch within. Within the bank, a circle of more than 100 sandstone (sarsen) pillars, up to 50 tons in weight, surrounds two smaller adjoining stone circles, each consisting of about 30 uprights and each approximately 350 feet (105 m) in diameter, and part of a third smaller circle. At the centre of the southern small circle stood a tall stone surrounded by smaller boulders. The middle smaller circle contained a central U-shaped stone structure. Part of a northern circle, apparently demolished to make way for the main ditch and bank, has also been found. The Ring Stone, a huge stone perforated by a natural hole, stood within the earthworks and main stone circle at the southern entrance.
Ayeesha
352; the favorite wife of Mohammed
Azimuth
544; Webster's: "an arc of the horizon measured between a fixed point (as true north) and the vertical circle passing through the center of an object usu. in astronomy and navigation clockwise from the north point through 360 degrees"
