Chapter 4

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492-page edition / 547-page edition

94/97 - The Search for Bridey Murphy
This book by Morey Bernstein, published in 1956, was about Virginia Tighe who, under hypnosis, began speaking in an Irish brogue and claimed that she was Bridey Murphy from Cork, Ireland. Past-lives regressions became big news. Read more...; Wikipedia

110/114 - Such was the (as it were) Jacobean etiology of Esther's eventual trip to Cuba; which see.
Pynchon must mean "Jacobean" in the sense of the Jacobean revenge-plays, written during the reign of James I (1603 – 1625) in England, the hallmarks of such plays being lust, revenge and murder. Where the plays of the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) were characterized by a sense of providential justice, a sense that the ravages of evil will ultimately be overcome by an inevitable movement of the cosmos toward moral harmony, Jacobean tragedies tended to depict corruption and violence that did not suggest divine retribution, the ultimate triumph of good and restoration of moral order.

Interesting that Pynchon uses "etiology" which usually means the cause of a disease, to characterize Esther's motivation for the trip to Cuba.

In Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 contains an extended parody of the Jacobean revenge-play formula, titled The Courier's Tragedy and written by the fictitious Richard Wharfinger.


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
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