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Published just after The Small Rain, in Low-Lands, mr. Pynchon's second story, Dennis Flange, a former naval communication officer, not too happily married, goes searching for his own point zero. He finds it underneath the earth, with a dwarf as child-wife, who has a rat as a child. The story is full of references: Rip Van Winkle, a lot of T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land, science (experimental psychology, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, ...), while the sea is nearly a character in this wonderful story where meanings get reversed. A fine introduction to the Pynchon ambiguities!
The pagination below is taken from Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner, Early Stories, Random House, London, UK, 2000, pp. 53-77. Low-Lands was originally published in New World Writing n° 16, pp. 85-108, Spring 1960. It was Thomas Pynchon's second published story.
| [ A ] | [ B ] | [ C ] | [ D ] | [ E ] | [ F ] | [ G ] | [ H ] | [ I ] |
| [ J ] | [ K ] | [ L ] | [ M ] | [ N ] | [ O ] | [ P ] | [ Q ] | [ R ] |
| [ S ] | [ T ] | [ U ] | [ V ] | [ W ] | [ X ] | [ Y ] | [ Z ] |
'51 MG
[61]'MG' - acronym for Morris Garages - was
a British company known for its powerful and elegant cars. The 1951 MG
model mentioned here may have been of of the T or Y (YA or saloon) series,
which series was into production until 1955. The car was stolen by Pig
Bodine near Manhasset station. Nice choice.
Nice place. Nice time [between 5 and 6, during rush hour).
A [^]
Anglo
[72] Nerissa calls Dennis with
the words "Anglo,
with the white hair", and also "with the shining teeth " —she
never says his name; instead she says 'Anglo' up to 5 times before
Dennis utters his name. Even then, she doesn't show any reaction to that.
Is what he seems to be her more important than his actual identity? Violetta's
influence may have been a bit too strong.
Airedales
[68]Airedale terriers were already used in the
19th century as police dog. During wartime they proved to be excellent
messenger dogs. A few pages earlier (60), Flange compares his wife Cindy to a “small blond terrier”.
Apocalypse>, Sons of the Red —
[75]A ficticious terrorist group, active in the
Thirties. Very well acquainted -be it not enough; they were caught by
the FBI- with labyrinths.
ASPCA
[56]Cindy, shouting at Dennis
Flange:
"You are a damned ASPCA, is what you are. I doubt if even they would take some of the animals you bring home."
From the site of the "American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals":
"Since 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been committed to alleviating pain, fear and suffering in all animals. The ASPCA is the oldest humane organization in America, and was founded by Henry Bergh, a philanthropist and diplomat who recognized the inhumane treatment suffered by many animals in our society."
B [^]
boccie ball
[76]An Italian bowling game, also popular within
Italo-American communities. It is also the name of a cocktail drink.
Bodine, Pig
[60]'Pig' Bodine makes his first appearance in Low-Lands and
will also be a character in most other Pynchon novels. He even has a
predecessor in Mason & Dixon. Mr. Pynchon claims in the Introduction to
Slow Learner that Pig is based on a real character, and that he originally
intended to write a story about Bodine, not about Flange.
Whatever Pig does, it is hardly ever according to the rules, be it in
the Navy or in society in general. He may be nasty, but he also has a
sense of freedom surrounding him.
Bolingbroke
[63]Bolingbroke is a very old Saxon name, meaning "the
home by the brook of Bulla's people", and is already mentioned
in the Doomesday Book. Bolingbroke Castle has a very interesting history,
and was the birthplace of Henry of Bolingbroke, Henry IV, King
of England, 1367 - 1413. In Shakespeare's Richard
II an important figure. A 15th century astrologer, Roger of Bolingbroke was
hanged for of being a witch. Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke (1678-1751)
had a short political career and
eventually fled to France. He was a deist:
His talents were brilliant and versatile; his style of writing was polished and eloquent; but his fatal lack of sincerity and honest purpose, and the low and unscrupulous ambition which made him scramble for power with a selfish indifference to national security, hindered him from looking wisely and deeply into any question. His philosophical theories are not profound, nor his conclusions solid, while his criticism of passing history is worthless.
Mr. Pynchon, working for Boeing in Seattle around the time of the writing of 'Low-Lands', may have had the WWII Canadian Bolingbroke airplane in mind:
"The Bolingbroke was the Canadian-built version of Bristol Aircraft (Britain) Company's Blenheim Mk IV bomber. Bolingbrokes were manufactured by Fairchild Aircraft Ltd., Longueil, PQ. Canada built a total of 687 Bolingbrokes between 1939 and 1943."
"The RCAF first used the Bolingbroke in 1939. In total, eight maritime squadrons in Canada flew the "Boly" on anti-submarine patrols off the east and west coasts. The majority of the Bolingbrokes served as training aeroplanes at the BCATP's Bombing and Gunnery Schools and Wireless Schools."
The Low-Lands Bolingbroke character is black, wears a porkpie hat, and lives on a dump.
C [^]
"Chinga tu madre"
[59] A quit common Mexican (Spanish) grocería,
meaning literally fuck your mother. This expression may have sometimes
a certain endearing tone. Completely irrelevant: Mexicans use as an equivalent
to the Anglosaxon "fucking" (as in "fucking bad weather")
the word "pinche".
Cindy
[55]Flange's wife, very
disappointed in her husband since he went of with Pig
Bodine, right after their wedding. She married
Dennis seven years ago, and wants to have a quiet,
middle class life. Every intrusion on that is not very welcomed. She
may well be a predecessor of Oedipa Maas, albeit not under the same pressure,
and without the classic Pynchon paranoia.
Convexity
[66]A concept used in optical science; used here
to describe the relationship to reality:
"What he worried about was any eventual convexity, a shrinking, it might be, of the planet itself to some palpable curvature of whatever he would be standing on, so that he would be left sticking out like a projected radius, unsheltered and reeling across the empty lunes of his tint sphere."
Coward, Noel
[57] British actor, playwright and lyricist (1899-1973).
He said: "Conceit is an outward manifestation of inferiority." Flange recites from "A
Room with a View", a song written and performed for the
first time in New York in 1928 in "This Year of Grace". This revue was
the first to have been written and composed completely by mr. Coward,
and was staged 318 times on Broadway. The song became immensely popular,
and was (among many others) re-recorded on December 12th, 1997 by Paul
McCartney for the album "Twientieth Century Blues"
A room with a view and you
And no one to worry us,
No one to hurry us through this dream we've found
We'll gaze at the sky and try
To guess what it's all about,
Then we we will figure out why the world is round
We'll be as happy and contented
as birds upon a tree,
High above the mountains and sea
We'll build and we'll coo-oo-oo-
And sorrow will never come.
Oh, will it ever come true,
a room room with a view
We'll build and we'll coo-oo-oo-
And sorrow will never come,
Oh, will it ever come true,
a room room with a view
Oo-oo, a room with a view.
Flange's happiness —if one can call it happiness— will not be found in a tree, as the story evolves; it will lay beneath the earth. Typically Pynchon: the song title is nowhere mentioned; there is, however a reference to it with the not very well chosen 'womb with a view'
cottage
[56]
The house of Cindy and Dennis,
on the north shore of Long
Island was
built in the 20's by an Episcopal minister. Its colour like that from a
prehistoric beast, and underneath a labyrinth, connected
to sewers. 'An almost organic mound', and Flange likes
the house: he had come to feel attached to the place by an umbilical cord
woven of lichen and sedge, furse and gorse.
D [^]
D-8 bulldozers
[64]
Deirdre O'Tool
[inv]
Delgado
[64] a steward from the Philippines, sings the
sea song
Division Officer
[75]which was Flange's function
during the Korean War; He was Pig's superior which explains the
way Pig addresses him, half asleep [73]
Doppelgänger
[73]Flange has changed since his Korean
period and he looks back on this as if he is now a completely different person.
But the other Flange is being described as 'that sea-dog of the lustry',
same page. The word is German.
Diaz, Geronimo.
[57]Flange's psychiatrist,
the first one in a longer series of rather cranky Pynchon shrinks. Owns
a Stradivarius.
He thinks he sold his soul to the devil (is this the first Pynchon Faust?),
having been Paganini. Ever since he did that he is not being able to
play ably. Quite a reversal to Thomas Mann's Dr.
Faustus (1948). One can call 'Geronimo' before doing something very
wild (like a defenestration act in Vineland). Dr. Diaz likes to booze
and recite Ebbinghaus monosyllaba.
dungaree, a — shirt
[55]Worn by Roccio Squarcione.
Must have been quit tasteless.
E [^]
Ebbinghaus, Herman
[58] A German experimental psychologist (1850-1909),
who wrote in 1885 a classic study: "Memory, A Contribution to Experimental
Psychology", in which he studies how people forget. He demonstrated this
using logarithmic functions and created over 2,300 monosyllaba without
any meaning in German. Memory requires meaning. ZAP. MOG. FUD. NAF. VOB.
F [^]
Flange, Dennis
[55]A 'flange' is, according to Merriam-Webster:
[1] a rib or rim for strength, for guiding, or for attachment to another
object; or
[2] a projecting edge of cloth used for decoration on clothing.
The word has a nice history: from the latin word 'flaccus' ('weak') came the early French 'flanc', denoting the weak part of the body, later on only the body side, and still later on only 'side'. It was exported with the 1066 invasion.
G [^]
General Electric refrigerator is a door [74], giving access to another labyrinth, created in the 30's by a terrorist group.
H [^]
Honeymoon, the — story
[62]Pynchon, in the Slow Learner Introduction,
notes that he heard this story himself back in the Navy, and was "heavily
amused" that
anyone "would
behave that way." The victim was his shipmate, and the perpetrator
the "real life" Pig Bodine.
Hyacinth
[inv] Apollo fell in love with Hyacinthus; when
he threw a quoit high up in the air, it accidentally hit Hyacinthus in
the head, who died. Apollo, out of grief and guilt, let his blood drip
in the earth out of which sprang the flower with the same name.In Joyce's Finnegan's
Wake it is mentioned several times in several different spellings.
Of course, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land comes into mind.
Etymologically, all ancient Greek words ending in -(i/a)nthos, are of
pre-Greek origin.
I [^]
Il Piacere
[inv]Vivaldi's Sixth Concerto
for Violin is usually called "Il Piacere." The musical
motives are highly interesting in this story.
J [^]
Jackson Heights
[59]
Jolly Jack Tar
[60]
K [^]
Keeler, Ruby
[68](1909-1993) Canadian actress, married to
Al Jolson from 1928 until 1940. In 1935 she played the leading part in
a musical called Shipmates Forever, directed by Frank Borzage, together
with Dick Powell (with which she acted in seven Warner Bros movies).
L [^]
labyritnh there are everal labyrinths in ths story
Long Island
[inv]Mr. Pynchon grew up on Long Island
M [^]
Midget, the — problem
[74]As if it were a political issue. One of the
themes in The Secret Integration is
middle class racism.
Midwatch
[60] Midnight to 4 am.
Molemanship
[57]"caught red-handed at Molemanship" this
is less a behaviour pattern than a state of mind
Muscatel
[55]Grape. Basis for a sugary kind of wine.
N [^]
Nerissa
[74](Greek) "nereis" means a nymph
or sea sprite. Portia's servant from "The Merchant of Venice.",
where she, in disguise, wins back a ring from her husband. In Low-Lands,
Nerissa
“[...] was a dream, this girl, an angel. She was also roughly three and a half feet tall”
According to Caroline Holdsworth, there are parallells between Nerissa and Cervantes' Dulcinea.
New World Writing
[N/A]Low-Lands was published in the literary
magazine New World Writing and was edited by J.B. Lippincott in Philadelphia,
which publishing house would also print V. and The Crying of
Lot 49. Number 16 (1960) contained, apart from work by Irving Feldman,
Leslie Carrett, Kingsley Amis, John Knowles, John F. Gilgun, E.N. Sargent,
Judson Jerome, Harriet F. Pilpel, Nancy F. Wechsler, Jack Richardson
and Jack Marshall, also:
NOB Officer's Club
[62]One of many US navy acronyms: Naval Operating
Base
O [^]
OOD
[60] Officer of the Deck:"An Officer of
the Deck (OOD) is always on the bridge when the ship is underway. Each
OOD stands a four-hour watch and is the officer designated by the Commanding
Officer (CO) to be in charge of the ship. The OOD is responsible for
the safety and operation of the ship, including navigation, ship handling,
communications, routine tests and inspections, reports, supervision of
the watch team, and carrying out the Plan of the Day."
P [^]
Pig Bodine
[inv]see: Bodine, Pig
Porcaccio
[inv][Italian] porco means 'pig', while
the suffix -accio has a very negative connotation. Is this the
very first reference in a Pynchon work to pigs, after Pig
Bodine's appearance?
[Thank you, Daniela Vargiu]
Porkpie Hat
[inv]Bolingbroke wears a porkpie hat. So did
Lester Young. Charles Mingus wrote an elegy for him, called Goodbye
Porkpie Hat. (also covered by Jeff Beck).
[Thank you, Doug Millison]
Q [^]
R [^]
Red-dog game
[61]A variant of poker. All cards are ranked
as in regular poker, the suit makes no difference, and aces are always
high. First the player places a wager. Then the dealer places two cards
on the table face up. If the two cards are consecutive then the hand
is a push. If the two cards are equal a third card is dealt, a matching
third card pays 11:1, otherwise the hand is a push. The key to this game
is getting a card to land in-between the first two cards dealt. Red-Dog
Poker goes by many other names, including yablon, in-between, ace-deuce
and between the sheets. There isn't a huge history to the game. It was
apparently popular in the old west, but was found too easy to cheat and
disappeared.
S [^]
Sea
[the sea is everywhere]The sea is the
central metaphor in this story.
"But the real reason he knew and could not say was that if you are Dennis Flange and if the sea's tides are the same that not only wash along your veins but also billow through your fantasies then it is all right to listen to but not to tell stories about that sea, because you and the truth of a true lie were thrown sometime way back into a curious contiguity and as long as you are passive you can remain aware of the truth's extent but the minute you become active you are somehow, if not violating a convention outright, at least screwing up the perspective of things, much as anyone observing subatomic particles changes the works, data and odds, by the act of observing. So he had told the other instead, at random. Or apparently so (69)."
Sea-Song
[63]The sea-song is called "The Golden Vanity.".
Here's a version recorded in the Oxford Book of Ballads, 1910:
A ship I have got in the North Country
And she goes by the name of the 'Golden Vanity,'
O I fear she'll be taken by a Spanish Ga-la-lee,
As she sails by the Low-lands low.
To the Captain then upspake the little Cabin-boy,
He said, 'What is my fee, if the galley I destroy?
The Spanish Ga-la-lee, if no more it shall anoy,
As you sail by the Low-lands low.'
'Of silver and of gold I will give to you a'store;
And my pretty little daughter that dwelleth on the shore,
Of treasure and of fee as well, I'll give to thee galore,
As we sail by the Low-lands low.'
Then they row'd him up tight in a black bull's skin,
And he held all in his hand an augur sharp and thin,
And he swam until he came to the Spanish Gal-a-lin,
As she lay by the Low-lands low.
He bored with his augur, he bored once and twice,
And some were playing cards, and some were playing dice,
When the water flowed in it dazzled their eyes,
And she sank by the Low-lands low.
So the Cabin-boy did swim all to the larboard side,
Saying 'Captain! take me in, I am drifting with the tide!'
'I will shoot you! I will kill you!' the cruel Captain cried,
'You may sink by the Low-lands low.'
Then the Cabin-boy did swim all to the starboard side,
Saying, 'Messmates, take me in, I am drifting with the tide!'
Then they laid him on the deck, and he closed his eyes and died,
As they sailed by the Low-lands low.
They sew'd his body tight in an old cow's hide,
And they cast the gallant cabin-boy out over the ship side,
And left him without more ado to drift with the tide,
And to sink by the Low-lands low.
Alternate versions: [1] [2]
[Thank you, Alan B. Ruch]
sea stories
[inv]While all present are asked to tell a sea
story, Flange refuses to do so. He has a special relationship to the
sea, and telling about that, can destroy that relationship.
Sfacim
[55]From about.com: "sfa-CHEEM; Neapolitan
slang for semen and equivalent to English slang such as spunk or gism.
However, it's also widely used as a term of endearment, as in 'Hey, sfacim.
Come over here and give your grandmother a kiss before I break your face.'" Charles
Hollander, in footnote 10 of
his wonderful study on the early stories, reminds us that it is a nearly-anagram
of fascism:"Does sfacim' nearly-anagramatically stand for
fascism". It is one of those hardly-ever used words, that find their
way to several Thomas Pynchon works. It will be used again as a reference
to organised crime in the third chapter of The Crying of Lot 49:
"I left my car on the other side of the lake," Di
Presso said, "but I know he has somebody watching."
"Who does," Metzger asked.
"Anthony Giunghierrace," replied ominous Di Presso, "alias
Tony Jaguar."
"Who?"
"Eh, sfacim'," shrugged Di Presso, and spat into their wake.
The Paranoids [. . .]
"So," said Di Presso, "who's Tony Jaguar. Very big in Cosa
Nostra, is who."
And what about V., Chapter 6. The girls mentioned in the paragraph below know the word; they are clearly shocked by Benny Profane using this guinea word:
"Benny here talks guinea," said Angel. "Say
something in guinea, hey."
"Sfacim," Profane said. The girls got all shocked.
"Your friend is a nasty mouth," one of them said.
"I don't want to sit with any nasty mouth," said the girl sitting
next to Profane.
The word is still in use these days. Take for example episode 9 of the 'The Sopranos':
"What? Look at that sfacim' over here. Wearing a cap in a nice restaurant like this."
Sharkey, Jack
[68]A boxer (1902-1994) whose real name was Joseph
Paul Zukauskas. He beat Max Schmeling in 1932.
Squarcione, Rocco
A garbage man, fond of Vivaldi. Makes his own muscatel wine.
While the surname Sqarcione doesn't exist in Italian, a squarcio is
a gash. Uno squarcio di sole is a burst of sunlight. Nice to know:
the English 'gash', according to Merriam-Webster, may originate from
the Greek noun [charasso], which means to engrave.
[Thank you, Daniela Vargiu]
Stradivarius
[inv]Italian instrument maker (1644-1737) of
celli, guitars, harps and violas . The technical perfection of his instruments
still puzzles science. Maybe is a sick shrink [word used in print for
the first time by Pynchon in V. an excellent owner.
U [^]
V [^]
Very pistol
[71]In order to draw attention in case of an
emergency, one can fire a Very pistol, named after Edward Wilson Very
(1847–1910), American naval officer who invented this pistol in
1877. Like the Pynchon family, the first Very family emigrated early
in the 17th century to America.
Violetta
[76]A gypsy fortune teller. Slade suggests that
she is the "Low-lands" analog to Eliot's Madame Sosostris, and Flange is the drowned Phoenician sailor.
Vivaldi, Antonio
[56]Italian composer and priest (1678-1740/1).
Vivaldi's Sixth Concerto for Violin, catalogued as RV 180, also
called "Il Piacere," was composed around 1740. From latin placere (mihi
placet: I like), piacere means pleasure. Mr. Pynchon tells us
as much on p. 60, while Flange is contemplating his marriage:
"[. . .] even as Vivaldi discoursed on pleasure [. . .]".
This small concerto —not yet 10 minutes— consists of three movements: allegro, largo and allegro. Dennis and Rocco listen to the second movement, the largo, when Pig enters the story. And this 2.5 minutes piece isn't funny at all. It has a kind of melancholy in it, as 'largo' already indicates. Vivaldi, after nearly being forgotten for about two centuries, was re-discovered in the Fifties (only in 1951 the London audience could enjoy Vivaldi's music for the first time), and became increasingly popular. Pig Bodine enters Pynchon's world accompanied by fashionable and melancholic music, while the word to describe the atmosphere is pleasure. An excellent stylistical idea, where things are not what they seem.
W [^]
Wasp & Winsome, Attorneys at Law
[55]Thomas Pynchon is a descendant from one of
the very first White Anglo Saxon Protestant families. His family came
with John Winthrop (sic) to America. And indeed, most US laws have been
made by WASPS. And does Pynchon like the word winsome? Rachel uses it
in Mortality And Mercy In Vienna:
I wanted to tell you, Sally's brother-in-law's sister, a winsome little brat of fourteen, just blew into town from some girls' school in Virginia and Sally is out with Jeff so Iv'e got to stay here and entertain her till Sally gets back, and by the time I'm able to get away the liquor will be all gone: I know Lupescu's parties."
In Chapter 2 of V., first occurrence of the character "Rooney" Winsome. The adjective has changed into a proper noun:
"Winsome, Charisma, Fu, and I. V-Note, McClintic Sphere. Paola Maijstral." Nothing but proper nouns. The girl lived proper nouns. Persons, places. No things. Had anyone told her about things? It seemed Rachel had had to do with nothing else.
And Dennis Flange says 'no' to both Wasp & Winsome. It is tempting to read this as: saying no to his own country, and its history. Flange takes the decision to go his own way. Note that it is Flange's own choice to say no; while the story evolves, he is a mere follower, until his final choice in the end to stay where he is.
womb, a — with a view [57] See Cowart, Noel
X [^]
Y [^]
Z [^]
Zenobia
[71]In the third century, queen of Palmyra in
what is now Syria and who, as a woman, became a real threat to Roman
Emperor Aurelianus. After having defeated Zenobia -her reign stretched
from Asia Minor well into Africa- Aurelianus brought her to Rome, chained
in gold, and let her live in a villa in Tivoli. There is some evidence
that one of her descendants was the bishop Zenobius of Cilicia (Turkey).
The first practical model of the dynamo was invented by Belgian industrialist
Zenobe Gramme (1826-1901).
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