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Annotations
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| Carpenter's Gothic Abbreviated
References |
63.3]
Haydn [...] Debussy: Austrian
(1732-1809) and French (1862-1918) composers, both of whom wrote for
the piano. 67.8] Quimper: a type of pottery, Quimper faience, originating in the French town of Quimper. [Frank Lekens] 70.23]
The Post: the New
York Post, known for its sensationalism and ludicrous headlines.
71.28]
Logan Act: a bill
passed by Congress in 1799 forbidding a private citizen from undertaking
diplomatic negotiations without official authority. 72.22]
DI: Drill
Instructor. 77.22]
Uncle Remus [...] the tar baby: from
Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle
Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1881). 77.26]
Lenox Avenue: a
principal thoroughfare in predominantly black Harlem. 78.28]
words from the book of Exodus [...] blood upon the dry land: Ex.
4:9. Here as elsewhere, the Authorized (King James) version is being
quoted. 79.1]
First Thessalonians [...] meet the Lord in the air: 1
Thess. 4:16-17. 79.6]
those who are not saved [...] of Satan: adapted
from Rev. 19-20. 80.16]
the profit Isaiah [...] in the house: Isa.
44:13. The prophet (“profit” is a deliberate typo) is describing the
construction of pagan idols, futile because made by human hands. 80.24]
Is not this the carpenter’s son?: Matt.
13:55. 80.24]
He who builded [...] his absolute truth [...] many mansions: a
hodgepodge of phrases from the Bible and pseudo-biblical diction; given
the fundamentalists’ emphasis on “absolutes,” it is perhaps worth
noting that no form of that word appears anywhere in the Bible. 81.11]
words from Revelation [...] water of life freely: Rev.
22:1, 17. 81.20]
Exodus [...] my salvation: Ex.
15:2. 81.23]
Pearly Gates: from
C. F. Alexander’s 1853 hymn “The Roseate Hues”: “Oh! for the
pearly gates of heaven! / Oh! for the golden floor!” 81.24]
Down By the River: traditional
gospel song, better known as “Down in the River to Pray,” which dates from the 19th century.
82.17]
Doris Chin: a
swipe at broadcaster Connie Chung. 87.31]
Tu Do street: a
major street in Saigon, often mentioned in Gaddis’s principal source for
the Vietnam material in CG, Michael
Herr’s Dispatches (New York:
Knopf, 1977). 87.32] monk barbecue: cruel slang for the self-immolation of protesting Buddhist monks, said to have originated with Ngo Dinh Nhu, sister-in-law of the then-president of South Vietnam. [Frank Lekens] 90.1]
Bobby Steyner: Gaddis
was so incensed at George Steiner’s review of J
R in the New Yorker that
the critic is lampooned here. (The manuscript, which I read, was more
explicit about the reference to Steiner.) 91.11]
Bachelor Officer Quarters when these VC sappers break in:
more terms Gaddis probably picked up from Herr’s Dispatches.
93.8]
the BQE: the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. 93.37]
Marrakech: city in
Morocco. 94.7]
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary [...] disinterested [...] a pundit
from the Times: in
the eighth edition (1977), the use of the word disinterested
in the sense of uninterested
(a misuse according to purists) is illustrated by Times
editorial writer C. L. Sulzberger’s “is supremely ~ in all efforts
to find a peaceful solution.” Cf. 248.8 ff. 95.25]
scissors wielded murderously on the screen: in Hitchcock's 1954
film Dial M for Murder; Grace Kelly killed her attempted murderer with
a pair of scissors. [AZ] 95.29]
a sense that he was still a part of all that he could have been: from
the description of Hugh Conway, the protagonist of James Hilton’s
popular novel Lost Horizon
(1933; New York: Pocket, 1939), p. 24, -- though the original reads “might have been” instead of “would have been.” This character has much in common with McCandless. (Gaddis originally used Lost
Horizon in the places where Jane
Eyre is now quoted, but the Hilton Estate refused permission, uneasy
with the sexual contexts in which the quotations appeared.)
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