Annotations to
Carpenter's Gothic
Chapter 2 
by Steven Moore except as [noted]

Carpenter's Gothic
index
annotations for chapter
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7

Abbreviated References
A. Gaddis’ Books

CG: Carpenter’s Gothic. 1985. New York: Penguin, 1999.
FHO: A Frolic of His Own.
New York: Poseidon, 1994.
JR: J R.
1975. New York: Penguin, 1993.
R: The Recognitions.
1955. New York: Penguin, 1993.
B. Gaddis’s Sources
EB: Encyclopædia Britannica. 14th ed., 1929.
ODQ: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations,
1st ed., 6th impression (London: Oxford University Press, 1949). Gaddis owned this particular impression, given to him by Ormande de Kay in Paris in 1950.
Plato: The Dialogues of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. New York: Random House, 1937. 2 vols.

26.12] On a besoin d’un nouvel aspirateur: Fr.: “You [or We] need a new vacuum cleaner.” (The succeeding French is largely self-explanatory and consequently will not be translated.)

28.30] LOSS OF $412 MILLION [...] BY GENERAL MOTORS: a front-page headline in the New York Times, 25 July 1980.

31.21] While we wait for the napkin, the soup gets cold: from the second stanza of Fitz Hugh Ludlow's 1869 poem "Too Late":

While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
And every thing comes too late--too late!

The second line appears at 62.1 and the beginning of line three at 122.16. "Too late" is a recurring phrase throughout the novel. [James Bennett III]

35.35] Montego Bay: on the NW coast of the island of Jamaica.

 36.10] Laocoön: a reference to the principal figure in the famous group sculpture, now in the Vatican, dating from the second century B.C

44.4] Teakell: J R features a Vern Teakell, superintendent of J R’s school district, and a dentist named Doctor Teakell (230).

  46.16] Rip Van Winkle: from Washington Irving’s tale of the same name (1819).

  49.8] burnt out case: given McCandless’s activities in Africa, probably an allusion to Graham Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case (1961), a novel set in a leper colony in the Congo.

  50.33] mysterious ways: “God moves in a mysterious way / His wonders to perform”—the best-known line from William Cowper’s Olney Hymns (ODQ).

  50.36] a mantled figure [...] all three vanished: from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), chap. 12, by way of the 1943 film version starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine.

  53.19] the moon ascending in solemn march [...] followed her course: ibid.

  54.18] a warm glow [...] the most pleasant radiance: ibid.

  55.6] a demoniac laugh [...] in a deep sleep: ibid., chap. 15.

  56.31] down a winding walk [...] splitting half of it away: ibid., chap. 23.

Carpenter's Gothic
index
annotations for chapter
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7