Difference between revisions of "Camp Concentration/Book One: May"

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−
Louis Sacchetti's first journal, beginning four months into his five-year sentence for unspecified anti-war activities. Louis describes his guards and cellmates, and briefly mentions the political situation on the outside. During a brief illness, he starts writing poetry again.
+
Sacchetti observes more of the fruits of Mordecai's genius: his apparently pointless research into alchemy, and a short story he has written on a Faustian theme. Louis's own creative writing has also gained new energy. Mordecai, assisted by the credulous Haast, presents a public enactment of a "Magnum Opus" that he claims will produce an elixir of life; instead it leaves him dead. Louis ends Book One with the realization that he too, for more than a month, has been infected with the disease Pallidine.
 
}}
 
}}
  
−
== May 11 ==
+
== June 16 ==
  
−
=== President McNamara ===
+
=== ''Morituri te salutamus'' ===
 +
Latin: "We who are about to die salute you"— allegedly a standard greeting to Roman emperors by gladiators entering the arena, although it is only documented in [[wikipedia:Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant|one case]].
  
−
{{wp|Robert McNamara}} was Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and one of the chief supporters of the escalation of the war in Vietnam. A former automotive executive who had also served in the Air Force's Office of Statistical Control, his reputation as a modernizing technocrat, whose intellectual justifications for his policies became increasingly disconnected from reality, makes him an ideal President for ''Camp Concentration''.
+
=== ''Quid nunc?'' ===
 +
Latin: "What now?"
  
−
Disch never states how far in the future ''Camp Concentration'' is set, or how long the unnamed war in the novel has been going on. Given McNamara's support for the "Domino Theory" of a global anti-Communist struggle, it's possible that the Vietnam War simply never ended, and has expanded into other parts of the world.
+
=== A base of charity ... neutralizes the acids of self-doubt ===
 +
Mordecai is using "base" in the sense of [[wikipedia:Alkalinity|alkaline]]. "Acids of self-doubt" seems to have become a cliché expression— the phrase appears without attribution from [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22acid+of+self-doubt%22 many authors]— but the original source, if any, is unclear.
  
−
=== "tactical" nuclear weapons ===
+
=== Opsi! Mopsi! Cottontail! ===
 +
Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail were the sisters of [[wikipedia:Peter Rabbit|Peter Rabbit]].
  
−
The possible use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam was a subject of much internal debate in the Johnson administration. McNamara was strongly against it, but continued to speak of it publicly as a possible last resort.
+
=== Farmer MacGregor got to him ===
 +
Peter Rabbit's nemesis.
  
−
== May 12 ==
+
=== ''Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Pathology'' ===
 +
A joke on the [http://archive.org/details/EncyclopaediaOfReligionAndEthics.Hastings-selbie-gray.13Vols ''Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics''] (1908-1926).
  
−
=== ''The House of the Dead'' ===
+
=== oblivious to the low soma ===
 +
The ''[[wikipedia:Somatic|soma]]'' is the body, as distinguished from the mind.
  
−
An 1861 [[wikipedia:The House of the Dead (novel)|novel]] by Fyodor Dostoevsky, based on his experiences in a Siberian prison camp.
+
=== cud-blurbling ... a spoonerism, somewhat ===
 +
An exact [http://wordsmith.org/words/spoonerism.html Spoonerism] for "blood-curdling" would be "cud-blurdling."
  
−
=== a dream of Philip Johnson (Grand Central Bathroom) ===
+
=== the Ghent altarpiece ===
 +
A 15th-century Flemish painting in 12 panels. [[wikipedia:Ghent_Altarpiece|Wikipedia]]
  
−
[[wikipedia:Philip Johnson|Johnson]] was a leader of the Modernist "international style" of architecture for much of the 20th century. {{wp|Grand Central Terminal}} is a New York City railway station built in 1913.
+
[[File:Eyck.hubert.lamb.750pix.jpg|600px]]
  
−
== May 13 ==
+
=== Several books on alchemy ===
 +
''Tabula smargdina'': [[wikipedia:Emerald Tablet|Wikipedia]], [http://www.crcsite.org/Tabula.htm Rosicrucian Archive]. ''A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels'': [http://www.alchemywebsite.com/figulus.html full text]. "Geber's ''Works''": either [[wikipedia:J%C4%81bir_ibn_Hayy%C4%81n|Jābir ibn Hayyān]] or the [[wikipedia:Pseudo-Geber|Pseudo-Geber]]. "Poisson's ''Nicolas Flamel''": by a [[wikipedia:Albert Poisson|19th-century occultist]], about a [[wikipedia:Nicolas Flamel|14th-century scribe]] who was later said to be an alchemist.
  
−
=== ''The Hills of Switzerland'' ===
+
=== ''DNA Engineering'' ===
 +
Fictional.
  
−
Disch's ''[[334]]'' mentions a [[334 Part V (28)|film]] with the same title, although for reasons that will become clear by the end of the novel, ''334'' cannot be set in the future of ''Camp Concentration''.
+
=== Raphael's ''School of Athens'' ===
 +
Depicts a gathering of Classical philosophers; "recently interpreted as an exhortation to philosophy and, in a deeper way, as a visual representation of the role of Love in elevating people toward upper knowledge" ([[wikipedia:The School of Athens|Wikipedia]]).
  
−
== May 15 ==
+
[[File:Sanzio_01.jpg|600px]]
  
−
=== Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita ===
+
=== Durer's ''Melancholia'' ===
 +
An allegorical print containing numerous mathematical and scientific references, whose possible interpretations include "the spiritual self-portrait of Dürer" ([[wikipedia:Melencolia I|Wikipedia]]).
  
−
From the opening of Dante's ''[http://www.divinecomedy.org/ Inferno]'', in which the narrator finds himself "midway upon the journey of our life" (in Longfellow's translation) shortly before descending into Hell.
+
[[File:Melencolia_I_(Durero).jpg|600px]]
  
−
=== ''Non serviam'' ===
+
=== what use Luther made of inkpots ===
 +
[http://www.luther.de/en/tintenfass.html Throwing them at the Devil.]
  
−
Latin: "[[wikipedia:Non serviam|I will not serve]]."
+
=== Yarrowsticks ===
 +
Dried stems sometimes used in consulting the [[wikipedia:I Ching divination|I Ching]]; slower than other methods of doing so.
  
−
=== his casuistry ... retrograde Irish Thomist ===
+
=== ''comme il faut'' ===
 +
French: "as it should be."
  
−
[[wikipedia:Thomist|Thomism]] is the religious and philosophical tradition of Thomas Aquinas, who will be referenced many times in ''Camp Concentration''. ''Casuistry'' is a style of argument in the tradition of Aristotle, based on discussing specific real or imaginary cases that illustrate an ethical dilemma.
+
=== this post-Keynesian age ===
 +
{{wp|John Maynard Keynes}} was influential in convincing European governments to abandon the gold standard in the 20th century.
  
−
== May 16 ==
+
=== Raymond Lully ===
 +
{{wp|Ramon Llull}}, 14th-century theologian and mathematician. The warning that "if you reveal this, you shall be damned" is cited by several authors [http://www.occultopedia.com/a/alchemy_page_3.htm][http://books.google.com/books?id=1nhO28Gm0sAC&lpg=PA293&ots=tnfH2x6Pw_&dq=llull%20%22you%20shall%20be%20damned%22&pg=PA294#v=onepage&q=llull&f=false], but with no specific source, and may be apocryphal.
  
−
=== burn blighted trees. A new virus, or one of our own ===
+
=== Whatever Isis is willing to unveil ===
 +
A reference to ''{{wp|Isis Unveiled}}'' (1877) by the occultist Madame Blavatsky.
  
−
Chemical herbicides such as {{wp|Agent Orange}} were used to destroy forests in the Vietnam War; here, biological weapons have been developed for a similar purpose (or have accidentally had the same effect).
+
=== I keep thinking of Ben Jonson ===
 +
Louis is referring to Jonson's ''[[wikipedia:The Alchemist (play)|The Alchemist]]'' (1610), in which the con artist Subtle baffles his marks with alchemical jargon. Sample:
  
−
== May 17 ==
+
<poem>
 +
It is, of the one part,
 +
A humid exhalation, which we call
 +
Material liquida, or the unctuous water;
 +
On the other part, a certain crass and vicious
 +
Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,
 +
Do make the elementary matter of gold;
 +
Which is not yet propria materia,
 +
But common to all metals and all stones;
 +
For, where it is forsaken of that moisture,
 +
And hath more driness, it becomes a stone:
 +
Where it retains more of the humid fatness,
 +
It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,
 +
Who are the parents of all other metals.
 +
</poem>
 +
 
 +
=== a fellow alchemist, Arthur Rimbaud—''Science est trop lente'' ===
 +
French: "Science is too slow," from Rimbaud's poem ''{{wp|A Season in Hell}}''. Rimbaud was not literally an alchemist, but used mystical imagery to represent violent spiritual transformation. A phrase from his "Letter of the Seer" is particularly appropriate to ''Camp Concentration'': "The poet makes himself a seer by a long, rational, and immense disordering of all the senses."<ref>{{cite article|author=Rimbaud, Arthur|translator=A.S. Kline|title=Extract from the 'Voyant' Letter|url=http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/Rimbaud3.htm|publication=Poetry in Translation|pub-date=2008|accessed=July 17, 2016}}</ref>
 +
 
 +
=== carrying coals to Newcastle ===
 +
A British expression referring to any pointless or redundant action, since Newcastle was a major center of coal mining.
  
−
=== in Genet, for instance ===
+
=== ''I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise'' ===
 +
From the George Gershwin musical ''[[wikipedia:An American in Paris (film)|An American in Paris]]''.
  
−
{{wp|Jean Genet}}'s fiction often portrayed homosexuality, especially in prison, with unusual explicitness for his time.
+
== June 17 ==
  
−
Sacchetti's distaste for homosexuality is in contrast to other aspects of his character that are quasi-autobiographical: Disch was also a poet and a lapsed Catholic, but was openly gay (though not openly so in his early career, prior to ''Camp Concentration'').
+
=== Portrait of Pompanianus ===
 +
Hugo van der Goes paints this fictional portrait in Mordecai's story after his own supposed death, in a magical effort "no longer to mirror reality but ... to ''compel'' it," thereby causing some event that Sacchetti describes only as a "catastrophe." This may be a reference to Tascius Pomponianus, who figures in Pliny the Younger's [http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pompeii.htm account] of the eruption of Vesuvius: a friend of Pliny the Elder, he inadvertently causes the latter's death because, as Pliny is escaping the volcano by ship, he stops to pick up Pomponianus but stays too long on shore and suffocates. The fate of Pomponianus himself is unknown.
  
−
=== ''Fifteen Famous Fatsos'' ===
+
=== "A Lodging for the Night" ===
−
Of the names Sacchetti suggests, {{wp|Samuel Johnson}}, {{wp|Alfred Hitchcock}}, Aquinas, and {{wp|Norbert Weiner}} were somewhat obese. The historical [[wikipedia:Physical characteristics of the Buddha|Buddha]] probably was not, but is often confused with the plump Chinese folklore figure {{wp|Budai}}. "Salinger" and "Melchior" are less clear since there are many famous figures with those names, but based on Sacchetti's physical criteria and the sort of people he finds noteworthy, they may be the former White House Press Secretary {{wp|Pierre Salinger}} and the opera singer {{wp|Lauritz Melchior}}.
+
This story by Stevenson ([http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30700/30700-h/30700-h.htm#page227 full text]) consists mostly of a dialogue between the medieval poet/brigand {{wp|François Villon}} and an elderly nobleman who tries to convince him to mend his ways.
  
−
== May 18 ==
+
=== Bowdler confronted with a copy of ''Naked Lunch'' ===
 +
{{wp|Thomas Bowdler}} was known for publishing expurgated works of Shakespeare, in which he removed not only words but also plot developments that he considered unsuitable for women and children. A Bowdlerization of ''{{wp|Naked Lunch}}'' would presumably retain no part of the novel.
  
−
=== neo-Millsians ===
+
=== Angels and ministers of grace ===
 +
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27761/27761-h/27761-h.htm#sceneI_4 ''Hamlet'', I.iv]: Hamlet's exclamation when he first sees his father's ghost.
  
−
{{wp|John Stuart Mill}} was a political philosopher who argued in favor of individual rights and liberal democracy, though he also believed that an intellectual elite would naturally exercise more influence than other people. In ''On Liberty'', he argued that even in an apparently free society, "everyone lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship" due to their unconscious deference to social class and custom.
+
== June 19 ==
  
−
=== Eichmann was noted as an "expert" ... he spoke Yiddish ===
+
=== Fellini's ''Commedia'' ===
 +
Fictional, apparently a future work of Fellini (who was only 47 when ''Camp Concentration'' was written).
  
−
[[wikipedia:Eichmann|Adolf Eichmann]], Nazi administrator who managed the transportation aspects of Hitler's genocide. During his trial for war crimes, Eichmann claimed to have learned fluent Hebrew and Yiddish, though it's not clear whether this was true.
+
=== Griffith's film of Ibsen's ''Ghosts'' ===
 +
Fictional film adaptation of the 1881 [[wikipedia:Ghosts (play)|play]]; one of the leading characters is a young artist who was born with syphilis due to his father's infidelities.
  
−
=== Youngerman's case ===
+
=== croquet (based partly on Lewis Carroll's game) ===
 +
The croquet game overseen by the Queen of Hearts in ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28885/28885-h/28885-h.htm#Page_96 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]'' has no particular rules, but is played using live flamingoes, hedgehogs, and soldiers in place of mallets, balls, and hoops.
  
−
Youngerman is not a historical figure, but a literary colleague of Sacchetti whose lack of political outspokenness has apparently preserved his career (he edits a magazine that later publishes Sacchetti's work).
+
== June 21 ==
  
−
== May 19 ==
+
=== the supplicant invoked another in the place of the one he intended ===
 +
Louis refers to this passage as if it is describing a demonic conjuration, but in context, Augustine is saying that someone who lacks religious guidance can nevertheless call on God: "...for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art."<ref>{{cite book|author=Augustine|date=c. 400|translator=E.B. Pusey|title=Confessions of St. Augustine|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm|location=Oxford|publisher=J.H. Parker|pub-date=1848}}</ref>
  
−
=== Auden observes somewhere (in the "Letter to Lord Byron"?) ===
+
=== the hypogeal daedal of corridors ... its minotaur ... Haast ===
 +
''Hypogeal'', below ground; ''daedal'', any intricate construction, referring to [[wikipedia:Daedalus|Daedalus]] who built the Labyrinth of Crete to imprison the Minotaur.
  
−
Sacchetti is thinking of [http://www.arlindo-correia.com/lord_byron.html this verse]:
+
=== People made fun of Isaac Newton ... because he studied astrology ===
 +
As usual, Haast misunderstands the history of the people he admires. Newton never wrote about astrology, and his alleged remark to Edmond Halley ("I have studied the matter, you have not!") was in fact about theology, not astrology.<ref>{{cite article|author=Van Gent, Robert H.|date=2004|title=Isaac Newton and Astrology|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20080629021908/http://www.skepticreport.com/predictions/newton.htm|publication=SkepticReport|accessed=July 17, 2016}}</ref> Although Haast surprisingly fails to mention it, Newton ''was'' extremely interested in alchemy; however, he published little about it during his lifetime and was not "made fun of" for this.
 +
 
 +
=== the first act of ''Tosca'' at the Amato Opera ===
 +
The {{wp|Amato Opera}} was a small opera company located about a mile from Disch's home in Manhattan. The opening of ''{{wp|Tosca}}'' takes place in the Church of {{wp|Sant'Andrea della Valle}}; the Amato's small stage would have required a scaled-down depiction of this setting.
 +
 
 +
=== Spirits to enforce, art to enchant ===
 +
From the end of ''The Tempest'', Prospero's parting words after he has renounced magic:<ref>Shakespeare, William. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23042/23042-h/23042-h.htm#sceneV_1 ''The Tempest''] (epilogue).</ref>
  
 
<poem>
 
<poem>
−
Professor Housman was I think the first
+
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
−
    To say in print how very stimulating
+
And what strength I have's mine own,
−
The little ills by which mankind is cursed,
+
Which is most faint ....
−
    The colds, the aches, the pains are to creating;
+
... Now I want
−
    Indeed one hardly goes too far in stating
+
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
−
That many a flawless lyric may be due
+
And my ending is despair,
−
Not to a lover's broken heart, but 'flu.
+
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
 +
Which pierces so, that it assaults
 +
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
 +
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
 +
Let your indulgence set me free.
 
</poem>
 
</poem>
  
−
=== The Silkworm Song ===
+
=== the dura mater, the arachnoid, and the pia mater ===
−
This poem later appeared in Disch's collection <em>The Right Way to Figure Plumbing</em>.{{ref Disch Plumbing}}
+
The three layers of the {{wp|meninges}} that surround the brain.
 +
 
 +
=== the Carmot ===
 +
Alchemical name for the substance of which the Philosopher's Stone was composed.
 +
 
 +
=== Aquinas' Eucharistic hymn ===
 +
[http://www.hymnary.org/text/o_esca_viatorum_o_panis_angelorum "O esca viatorum"] is sometimes attributed to Aquinas, but may instead be the work of an unknown 17th-century writer. The Bishop's English translation ("O food of wayfarers!") is similar to that in [http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/f/ofood2mn.htm ''The English Hymnal''].
 +
 
 +
== June 22 ==
 +
 
 +
=== I can float. Often to the height of a cubit ===
 +
Aquinas never claimed himself to be able to levitate or perform any other miracles, but others later claimed to have seen this; G.K. Chesterton's essay on Aquinas confused the matter, saying that "[h]is experiences included well-attested cases of levitation in ecstasy"<ref>{{cite article|author=Chesterton, G.K.|date=February 27, 1932|title=St. Thomas Aquinas|url=http://www.chesterton.org/discover-chesterton/selected-works/the-theologian/st-thomas-aquinas/|publication=The Spectator}}</ref>, although Chesterton's later book amended this to say only that "somebody" claimed to have seen such an event.
 +
 
 +
=== ''Quantam sufficit'' ===
 +
Latin: "A sufficient quantity"; abbreviated as ''q.s.'' in pharmaceutical prescriptions.
 +
 
 +
=== Why did the hyperdulia pray to the Pia Mater? ===
 +
''Hyperdulia'', a Catholic term for the proper degree of devotion to give to the Virgin Mary; from the Greek for "higher servitude." ''Pia mater'', one of the meningeal layers (see above), but whose literal meaning in Latin is "gentle mother."
 +
 
 +
=== Why is a raven like a writing desk? ===
 +
A riddle asked by the Mad Hatter, and never answered, in [http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice9.html ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'']. Lewis Carroll, in a preface to a later edition, said he originally had no particular answer in mind but offered two possible ones.
 +
 
 +
Disch's friend John Sladek, in his 1980 novel ''[[Roderick]]'', used the same riddle as [[Roderick/Book One#There a like because they both sound like they begin with R|a test of an artificial intelligence's creativity]].
 +
 
 +
=== Abbot Suger was especially keen on Dionysius ===
 +
This refers not to the historical [[wikipedia:Dionysius the Areopagite|Dionysius]] who was the first Bishop of Athens, but to Pseudo-Dionysius, the unknown author of mystical texts that were wrongly attributed to Dionysius (similarly, Haast [[Camp Concentration/Book One: June 2 to June 15#June 10|earlier]] referred to Albertus Magnus when he really meant Pseudo-Albertus). {{wp|Abbot Suger}} was said to have based the architecture of the Abbey of Saint-Denis on Pseudo-Dionysius's writings, but this theory is controversial.<ref>Schloeder, Steven J. [http://www.academia.edu/2562478/Per_Lumina_Vera_ad_Verum_Lumen_The_Anagogical_Intention_of_Abbot_Suger "Per Lumina Vera ad Verum Lumen: The Anagogical Intention of Abbot Suger"]. ''Symmeikta'', ed. Ivan Stevović. University of Belgrade, 2012.</ref>
 +
 
 +
=== I died from eating miraculous herrings ===
 +
The alleged "miracle of the herrings"— in which, as described here, a barrel of sardines turned into the herrings that Aquinas preferred— would have been of no consequence except that it just barely met the Church's criteria for granting Aquinas sainthood. As described in the canonization testimony, contrary to what the dream-Aquinas says here, "when the herrings were brought to Thomas, he would not eat them."<ref>[http://www.sedevacantist.com/stthomas/stcanonise.html "The Sanctity and Miracles of St. Thomas Aquinas, From the First Canonisation Enquiry"]. ''Bellarmine Forums''. Accessed July 17, 2016.</ref>
 +
 
 +
The cause of his death is unknown, but he was already ill when he stopped at Maenza where the herring incident was said to have happened. Disch's notion that he was killed by the herrings may be a joke on Dante's unsubstantiated allegation, in the ''Inferno'', that Aquinas was poisoned by the King of Sicily.
 +
 
 +
=== a thin white host covered with indecipherable script ===
 +
Similar to the "little scroll" in the book of Revelation:<ref>[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=5534755 Revelation, Chapter 10, Revised Standard Version]</ref>
 +
<poem>
 +
...the voice which I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, "Go, take the scroll which is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land."
 +
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, "Take it and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth."
 +
And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.
 +
</poem>
  
 
== Footnotes ==
 
== Footnotes ==
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
−
 
 
{{Camp Concentration nav}}
 
{{Camp Concentration nav}}

Revision as of 17:53, 18 January 2025

Summary

Sacchetti observes more of the fruits of Mordecai's genius: his apparently pointless research into alchemy, and a short story he has written on a Faustian theme. Louis's own creative writing has also gained new energy. Mordecai, assisted by the credulous Haast, presents a public enactment of a "Magnum Opus" that he claims will produce an elixir of life; instead it leaves him dead. Louis ends Book One with the realization that he too, for more than a month, has been infected with the disease Pallidine.

June 16

Morituri te salutamus

Latin: "We who are about to die salute you"— allegedly a standard greeting to Roman emperors by gladiators entering the arena, although it is only documented in one case.

Quid nunc?

Latin: "What now?"

A base of charity ... neutralizes the acids of self-doubt

Mordecai is using "base" in the sense of alkaline. "Acids of self-doubt" seems to have become a cliché expression— the phrase appears without attribution from many authors— but the original source, if any, is unclear.

Opsi! Mopsi! Cottontail!

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail were the sisters of Peter Rabbit.

Farmer MacGregor got to him

Peter Rabbit's nemesis.

Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Pathology

A joke on the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (1908-1926).

oblivious to the low soma

The soma is the body, as distinguished from the mind.

cud-blurbling ... a spoonerism, somewhat

An exact Spoonerism for "blood-curdling" would be "cud-blurdling."

the Ghent altarpiece

A 15th-century Flemish painting in 12 panels. Wikipedia

Eyck.hubert.lamb.750pix.jpg

Several books on alchemy

Tabula smargdina: Wikipedia, Rosicrucian Archive. A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels: full text. "Geber's Works": either Jābir ibn Hayyān or the Pseudo-Geber. "Poisson's Nicolas Flamel": by a 19th-century occultist, about a 14th-century scribe who was later said to be an alchemist.

DNA Engineering

Fictional.

Raphael's School of Athens

Depicts a gathering of Classical philosophers; "recently interpreted as an exhortation to philosophy and, in a deeper way, as a visual representation of the role of Love in elevating people toward upper knowledge" (Wikipedia).

"The School of Athens" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino.jpg

Durer's Melancholia

An allegorical print containing numerous mathematical and scientific references, whose possible interpretations include "the spiritual self-portrait of Dürer" (Wikipedia).

Melencolia I (Durero).jpg

what use Luther made of inkpots

Throwing them at the Devil.

Yarrowsticks

Dried stems sometimes used in consulting the I Ching; slower than other methods of doing so.

comme il faut

French: "as it should be."

this post-Keynesian age

John Maynard Keynes was influential in convincing European governments to abandon the gold standard in the 20th century.

Raymond Lully

Ramon Llull, 14th-century theologian and mathematician. The warning that "if you reveal this, you shall be damned" is cited by several authors [1][2], but with no specific source, and may be apocryphal.

Whatever Isis is willing to unveil

A reference to Isis Unveiled (1877) by the occultist Madame Blavatsky.

I keep thinking of Ben Jonson

Louis is referring to Jonson's The Alchemist (1610), in which the con artist Subtle baffles his marks with alchemical jargon. Sample:

It is, of the one part,
A humid exhalation, which we call
Material liquida, or the unctuous water;
On the other part, a certain crass and vicious
Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,
Do make the elementary matter of gold;
Which is not yet propria materia,
But common to all metals and all stones;
For, where it is forsaken of that moisture,
And hath more driness, it becomes a stone:
Where it retains more of the humid fatness,
It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.

a fellow alchemist, Arthur Rimbaud—Science est trop lente

French: "Science is too slow," from Rimbaud's poem A Season in Hell. Rimbaud was not literally an alchemist, but used mystical imagery to represent violent spiritual transformation. A phrase from his "Letter of the Seer" is particularly appropriate to Camp Concentration: "The poet makes himself a seer by a long, rational, and immense disordering of all the senses."[1]

carrying coals to Newcastle

A British expression referring to any pointless or redundant action, since Newcastle was a major center of coal mining.

I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise

From the George Gershwin musical An American in Paris.

June 17

Portrait of Pompanianus

Hugo van der Goes paints this fictional portrait in Mordecai's story after his own supposed death, in a magical effort "no longer to mirror reality but ... to compel it," thereby causing some event that Sacchetti describes only as a "catastrophe." This may be a reference to Tascius Pomponianus, who figures in Pliny the Younger's account of the eruption of Vesuvius: a friend of Pliny the Elder, he inadvertently causes the latter's death because, as Pliny is escaping the volcano by ship, he stops to pick up Pomponianus but stays too long on shore and suffocates. The fate of Pomponianus himself is unknown.

"A Lodging for the Night"

This story by Stevenson (full text) consists mostly of a dialogue between the medieval poet/brigand François Villon and an elderly nobleman who tries to convince him to mend his ways.

Bowdler confronted with a copy of Naked Lunch

Thomas Bowdler was known for publishing expurgated works of Shakespeare, in which he removed not only words but also plot developments that he considered unsuitable for women and children. A Bowdlerization of Naked Lunch would presumably retain no part of the novel.

Angels and ministers of grace

Hamlet, I.iv: Hamlet's exclamation when he first sees his father's ghost.

June 19

Fellini's Commedia

Fictional, apparently a future work of Fellini (who was only 47 when Camp Concentration was written).

Griffith's film of Ibsen's Ghosts

Fictional film adaptation of the 1881 play; one of the leading characters is a young artist who was born with syphilis due to his father's infidelities.

croquet (based partly on Lewis Carroll's game)

The croquet game overseen by the Queen of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has no particular rules, but is played using live flamingoes, hedgehogs, and soldiers in place of mallets, balls, and hoops.

June 21

the supplicant invoked another in the place of the one he intended

Louis refers to this passage as if it is describing a demonic conjuration, but in context, Augustine is saying that someone who lacks religious guidance can nevertheless call on God: "...for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art."[2]

the hypogeal daedal of corridors ... its minotaur ... Haast

Hypogeal, below ground; daedal, any intricate construction, referring to Daedalus who built the Labyrinth of Crete to imprison the Minotaur.

People made fun of Isaac Newton ... because he studied astrology

As usual, Haast misunderstands the history of the people he admires. Newton never wrote about astrology, and his alleged remark to Edmond Halley ("I have studied the matter, you have not!") was in fact about theology, not astrology.[3] Although Haast surprisingly fails to mention it, Newton was extremely interested in alchemy; however, he published little about it during his lifetime and was not "made fun of" for this.

the first act of Tosca at the Amato Opera

The Amato Opera was a small opera company located about a mile from Disch's home in Manhattan. The opening of Tosca takes place in the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle; the Amato's small stage would have required a scaled-down depiction of this setting.

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant

From the end of The Tempest, Prospero's parting words after he has renounced magic:[4]

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint ....
... Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

the dura mater, the arachnoid, and the pia mater

The three layers of the meninges that surround the brain.

the Carmot

Alchemical name for the substance of which the Philosopher's Stone was composed.

Aquinas' Eucharistic hymn

"O esca viatorum" is sometimes attributed to Aquinas, but may instead be the work of an unknown 17th-century writer. The Bishop's English translation ("O food of wayfarers!") is similar to that in The English Hymnal.

June 22

I can float. Often to the height of a cubit

Aquinas never claimed himself to be able to levitate or perform any other miracles, but others later claimed to have seen this; G.K. Chesterton's essay on Aquinas confused the matter, saying that "[h]is experiences included well-attested cases of levitation in ecstasy"[5], although Chesterton's later book amended this to say only that "somebody" claimed to have seen such an event.

Quantam sufficit

Latin: "A sufficient quantity"; abbreviated as q.s. in pharmaceutical prescriptions.

Why did the hyperdulia pray to the Pia Mater?

Hyperdulia, a Catholic term for the proper degree of devotion to give to the Virgin Mary; from the Greek for "higher servitude." Pia mater, one of the meningeal layers (see above), but whose literal meaning in Latin is "gentle mother."

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

A riddle asked by the Mad Hatter, and never answered, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll, in a preface to a later edition, said he originally had no particular answer in mind but offered two possible ones.

Disch's friend John Sladek, in his 1980 novel Roderick, used the same riddle as a test of an artificial intelligence's creativity.

Abbot Suger was especially keen on Dionysius

This refers not to the historical Dionysius who was the first Bishop of Athens, but to Pseudo-Dionysius, the unknown author of mystical texts that were wrongly attributed to Dionysius (similarly, Haast earlier referred to Albertus Magnus when he really meant Pseudo-Albertus). Abbot Suger was said to have based the architecture of the Abbey of Saint-Denis on Pseudo-Dionysius's writings, but this theory is controversial.[6]

I died from eating miraculous herrings

The alleged "miracle of the herrings"— in which, as described here, a barrel of sardines turned into the herrings that Aquinas preferred— would have been of no consequence except that it just barely met the Church's criteria for granting Aquinas sainthood. As described in the canonization testimony, contrary to what the dream-Aquinas says here, "when the herrings were brought to Thomas, he would not eat them."[7]

The cause of his death is unknown, but he was already ill when he stopped at Maenza where the herring incident was said to have happened. Disch's notion that he was killed by the herrings may be a joke on Dante's unsubstantiated allegation, in the Inferno, that Aquinas was poisoned by the King of Sicily.

a thin white host covered with indecipherable script

Similar to the "little scroll" in the book of Revelation:[8]

...the voice which I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, "Go, take the scroll which is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land."
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, "Take it and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth."
And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Rimbaud, Arthur, translated by A.S. Kline. "Extract from the 'Voyant' Letter". Poetry in Translation, 2008. Accessed on July 17, 2016.
  2. ↑ Augustine (c. 400), translated by E.B. Pusey. Confessions of St. Augustine. Oxford: J.H. Parker, 1848.
  3. ↑ Van Gent, Robert H. (2004). "Isaac Newton and Astrology". SkepticReport. Accessed on July 17, 2016.
  4. ↑ Shakespeare, William. The Tempest (epilogue).
  5. ↑ Chesterton, G.K. (February 27, 1932). "St. Thomas Aquinas". The Spectator.
  6. ↑ Schloeder, Steven J. "Per Lumina Vera ad Verum Lumen: The Anagogical Intention of Abbot Suger". Symmeikta, ed. Ivan Stevović. University of Belgrade, 2012.
  7. ↑ "The Sanctity and Miracles of St. Thomas Aquinas, From the First Canonisation Enquiry". Bellarmine Forums. Accessed July 17, 2016.
  8. ↑ Revelation, Chapter 10, Revised Standard Version

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