Preface
Abbreviated Sources
and References
Annotations: title,
epigraph and
dedication
Part I
I.1 Synopsis
pp. 3-21
pp. 23-28
pp. 29-46
pp. 47-62
I.2 Synopsis
pp. 63-68
pp. 69-77
I.3 Synopsis
pp. 78-93
pp. 94-123
pp. 124-153
I.4 Synopsis
pp. 154-168
I.5 Synopsis
pp. 169-187
pp. 188-201
I.6 Synopsis
pp. 202-221
I.7 Synopsis
pp. 222-256
pp. 257-277
Part II
Part III
I.4 pp. pages 154-168
154.epigraph] Les femmes soignent [...] Rimbaud: Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91), precocious French symbolist poet. The quotation is from his major work, A Season in Hell (1873), a prose-poetic vigil through the dark night of the soul: "I'll return with limbs of iron, dark skin and furious eye; people will think to look at me that I am of a strong race. I will have gold: I will be idle and brutal. Women nurse those fierce invalids, home from the hot countries. I'll be mixed up in politics. Saved" (from part 2: "Bad Blood" [epigraph italicized], trans. Louise Varèse).
155.7] an Italian Renaissance: later identified as Lady of the Junipers (168.10).
156.7] The most difficult challenge [...] ceases to be an ideal: a condensation of LWW, book 6: "The Myth v. Marriage."
156.16] a bit of verse [...] concerning Petrarch and his Laura: probably this couplet from Byron's Don Juan (quoted in ODQ): "Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, / He would have written sonnets all his life?" Lord Byron's name, George Gordon, probably provided that of Otto's Byronic protagonist.
156.17] Virginia [...] Paul: from Paul et Virginie (1787), the famous idyllic romance by the French writer Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814).
160.8] sursum corda: Lat.: "lift up your hearts" (from the Mass); used similarly at 332.6.
160.27] Enesco's Third Rumanian Rhapsody played on a harmonica: Georges Enesco (1881-1955), Rumanian composer; he wrote only two Rumanian rhapsodies, so either his Third Symphony is meant or (more likely if played on a harmonica) the reference is facetious.
160.30] Saint Paul would have us redeem time: see 144.38.
160.30] present and past are both present in time future [...] no redemption but one: from the opening of Eliot's "Burnt Norton," the first of Four Quartets: "Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future / And time future contained in time past. / If all time is eternally present / All time is unredeemable."
160.37] Two years isn't long, not if you say it real fast: a remark Gaddis heard while in Central America in 1947-48 and quoted in his brief memoir "In the Zone" (New York Times, 13 March 1978, 21; rpt. in the first edition of this Reader's Guide, 301-4). Several details in this chapter and III.1 were reused in the memoir.
162.6] Quién limpian mi cuarto mañana: "Who cleaned my room this morning" is what Otto means to ask, though his Spanish here and throughout the chapter is usually incorrect (for example, limpian should be limpió).
162.12] Hay visto una manuscripta aquí?: "Did you see a manuscript here?" (should be "¿Han visto un manuscrito aquí?")
162.16] Qué dijo?: "What did he say?"
162.17] playa: "beach"; the word Otto wants is pieza or drama.
162.24] El está para la máquina [...] Esta mañana: "It was by the typewriter [...]. This morning" (should be "Estaba junto . . .").
162.29] Qué cosa?: "What thing?"
162.30] Papel [...] al máquina: "Paper. [...] Paper on which I wrote my beach on the typewriter."
162.41] No entiendo: "I don't understand."
162.43] Tiemplo: that is, tiempo.
163.7] Pero sí: "But of course."
163.13] Lo pusé aquí [...] o se ensuciara: "I set it [should be puse] here when I was packing, everything was so unraveled that I was afraid that it would get lost, or get dirty."
165.39] La limpia: "Clean them?"
166.11] Una limosnita, por el amor de Dios: "A small almsgiving, for the love of God." (If Gaddis didn't hear this himself in Central America or Spain, he would have read it in Borrow's BS [72].)
166.17] Dios se lo pague: "May God repay you."
168.10] Lady of the Junipers: unidentified.
168.25] girl who loved her brother the sun: source unknown.