Chapter 7

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Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.
492-page edition / 547-page edition
159/168 - Signor Mantissa

Mantissa = Latin: "makeweight": something thrown onto a scale to bring the weight to a desired value; In mathematics: the decimal part of a logarithm; Wikipedia

Machiavelli by Santi di Tito
160/170 - Like Machiavelli he was in exile

In a famous letter to his friend Francesco Vettori, Machiavelli described how he spent his days in exile:

When evening comes, I return home [from work and from the local tavern] and go to my study. On the threshold I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world.
From Pynchon's short story Entropy:
His had always been a vigorous, Italian sort of pessimism: like Machiavelli, he allowed the forces of virtù and fortuna to be about 50/50; but the equations now introduced a random factor which pushed the odds to some unutterable and indeterminate ratio which he found himself afraid to calculate. [1]
164/174 - "Capo di minghe!"

"Minghe" stands for "minchia" (a very common expression, like the American "shit" — and quite vulgar). "Minghe" is how "minchia" is spelled (pronounced) by southern Italians. "Minchia" means "dick", so "minghe morte" means "your dick is dead" (i.e, "impotent"), and "capo di minghe" means "dickhead", "dick-headed" &c. "Minghe" by itself would be like saying "shit" or any sort of profane exclamation."

From Pynchon's short story Entropy [2]:

"Minghe morte," said Duke. "I figured we were playing it a little slow," Krinkles said.

Also, Mingeborough is where the kids live in Pynchon's short story The Secret Integration.

191/205 - a loud morra game

From Pynchon's short story Entropy [3]:

"There was a two-handed, bilingual morra game on over by the icebox. Saul had filled several paper bags with water and was sitting on the fire escape, dropping them on passersby in the street. A fat government girl in a Bennington sweatshirt, recently engaged to an ensign attached to the Forrestal, came charging into the kitchen, head lowered, and butted Slab in the stomach. Figuring this was as good an excuse for a fight as any, Slab's buddies piled in. The morra players were nose-to-nose, screaming trois, sette at the top of their lungs."

From Wikipedia:

While there are many variations, most forms of morra can be played with two, three or more players. In the most popular version of Morra both players throw out a single hand each showing one or two fingers, and call out loud their guess at what the sum of all fingers shown will be. If one player guesses the sum, that play earns one point. The first player to reach three points wins the game.


References

  1. Pynchon, Thomas, Slow Learner, Jonathan Cape, 1985, pp. 87-88
  2. Ibid., p. 96
  3. ibid, p. 96


Chapter 1
In which Benny Profane, a schlemihl and human yo-yo, gets to an apocheir
9/1
Chapter 2
The Whole Sick Crew
44/39
Chapter 3
In which Stencil, a quick-change artist, does eight impersonations
61/59
Chapter 4
In which Esther gets a nose job
95/97
Chapter 5
In which Stencil nearly goes West with an alligator
111/115
Chapter 6
In which Profane returns to street level
134/141
Chapter 7
She hangs on the western wall
152/161
Chapter 8
In which Rachel gets her yo-yo back, Roony sings a song, and Stencil calls on Bloody Chiclitz
213/229
Chapter 9
Mondaugen's story
229/247
Chapter 10
In which various sets of young people get together
280/305
Chapter 11
Confessions of Fausto Maijstral
304/333
Chapter 12
In which things are not so amusing
347/385
Chapter 13
In which the yo-yo string is revealed as a state of mind
367/407
Chapter 14
V. in love
393/437
Chapter 15
Sahha
415/461
Chapter 16
Valletta
424/471
Epilogue, 1919
456/507