72.05: Pauline: The first of three P
names appearing in this chapter. The others are of a couple, Phil and Phyllis.
As Misha has pointed out, Pauline has an echo from Paul
Plam (Ch. 9).
73.07-08: around ten o'clock a most jarring
succession of bumps and scrapes suddenly came from above: The sounds from the
inscrutable sculpture reminds me of the statue that comes bumping
to Don Juan for dinner. The inscrutable sculpture also seems to
be related with the mysterious colossus we have seen
in HP's dreams (Ch. 16).
73.10: *anide*: Brian Boyd
explains "anide" in the LoA edition notes as "Anidian, formless,
lacking differentiation (of an embryo or fetus). I found that in Webster 3
as the definition of "anidian," and I think the meanings Brian
cites matches the text, but I could not find that
"anide" equals "anidian." A website has "anide" as a
synonym of "acardiaque," i. e., "acardiac" in English. Cf.
Vulgaris-Medical: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:SGeEfe-j_QcJ:www.vulgaris-medical.com/v1/%3Fp%3Dindex_fiche%26id_article%3D5331+anide&hl=ja .
The other "anide" hit was in a Spanish verb conjugation
table. "Anidar">"anide" means 1. to nest, 2. to live. I would be
grateful if someone would explain the Spanish verb. I do not understand why
the Belgian sculptor named his work made from a French (or
Belgian) woman in Spanish, though.
73.26-30: she [went back] to her book, which
was a French touring guide that listed many splendid restaurants, forked and
starred, but not very many "pleasant, quiet, well-situated hotels" with three or
more turrets and sometimes a little red songbird on a twig: Her
book seems to be Le Guide Rouge, Michelin. Does it
have turrets and red songbirds too?
74.01: One of his characters is consulting a
Michelin: as if Armande and HP were two characters of
*Tralatitions*. HP is proofreading the novel, in which he is
proofreading the novel, in which . . . making Chinese boxes. We
have already seen some foreshadowings, say, a green figurine of a
female skier or the cover illustration of "Figures in a
Golden Window." Their reading scene goes farther because it is
a sort of infinite regression "into" the book, besides, proofreading
is one of the important motifs.
74.02-03: there's many a mile between Condom
in Gascogne and Pussy in Savoie: They are real place
names.
74.09-10: I used to play tennis mentally when
I was young: HP used to imagine to shoot perfect Person
Strokes as a means to fall asleep, but gave it up when he married
Armande (Ch. 16).
74.34-75.02: R. showed a mother and daughter
regaling their young lover with spectacular caresses on a mountain ledge above a
scenic chasm and in other less perilous spots: The model of the young lover is
presumably Christian Pines, who "was the lover of both mother and daughter, whom
he had serviced in Cavaliere, Cal., during two summers" (Ch. 10). If
we count Pines too, there are four P names.
75.04-05: coon-bear grunts during
copulation: An entry added to the list of animals (or animal
metaphors).
75.08-10: Although the author *had* made her
fair-haired, and played down the Eurasian quality of her beauty: As Mr. R. said
in the previous chapter, "no matter how drastically you changed the image, its
prototype would remain recognizable by the shape of the hole left in the texture
of the tale" (Ch. 18).
75.13-15: his eye and his spine (the true
reader's main organ) collaborating rather than occluding each other: Cf. "In
order to bask in that magic a wise reader reads the book of genius not with his
heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs
the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached
when reading. Then with a pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual we
shall watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards
become a castle of beautiful steel and glass." "Good Readers and Good Writers"
in *Lectures on Literature*.
75.19-20: the huge battered one [dictionary]
in the office: Probably Webster 2 VN used. It has all the words that puzzle
HP here.
75.17: rimiform: In botany, shaped like a slit
(from Latin *rima*, "narrow furrow"). From BB's notes to the LoA
edition.
75.17: balanic plum: Balan- or balano-, a
combinative form, glans penis. Ibid.
75.21: kew tree: Ginkgo. Ibid.
75.22: nebris: Faun skin; in classical art,
worn by Dionysus, satrys, etc. Ibid.
75.24-25: or was the entire combination a sly
scramble?: As BB notes, "Adam von Librikov" is an anagram of Vladmir
Nabokov. Ibid.
76.01-02: had it been in her childhood . . .
as delectably described in the novel? Or did he flirt with her in her first
college year. . .?: Neither is what we heard in Ch. 11: "Julia, who according to
Phil had been debauched at thirteen by R., right at the start of her mother's
disastrous marriage." Too obvious an allusion to *Lolita*.
76.09: How good to have *that* type of
talent!: I wonder why "that" is italicized. The narrator refers to the
talent of pedophilia?
Akiko Nakata