Endnote 110 (from page 309)

7 November Y.D.A.U. — classes · first-time reader guide · all scenes

You were sent here from page 309 — when you're done, head back to pages 307–312.

When you've finished these pages: three things worth a second look, at the bottom.

You've just been sent to endnote 110 from page 309 — off a passing remark about Hal's savvy on Québec Separatism — and this one is a destination, not a gloss: the longest endnote in the book, pp. 1005–22, with twelve lettered sub-footnotes of its own. It's the evening of Interdependence-Day Eve, 7 November, and it's the fourth Orin–Hal phone call so far, two days after the one you read on pp. 242–58: Hal naked on his bed with his bad ankle in a janitor's pail of Epsom salts, going through Mario's shoebox archive of rescued family mail, while Orin calls long-distance with an agenda. Settle in; it reads like a full chapter because it is one.

Terms, in order of appearance

felo de se (p. 1006) — legal Latin: suicide, literally "felon of himself"; the headline's term for Himself's death.
M.G.M. (p. 1006) — sub-footnote c: the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts, Avril's syntactic-integrity action group.
Jethro Bodine (p. 1007) — real: the dim nephew on The Beverly Hillbillies; the form letter's signatory.
E Unibus Pluram (p. 1007) — the U.S. motto inverted: "from one, many"; Hal's Interdependence-Day joke.
samizdat (p. 1011) — the Russian word for self-published banned writing; you got it defined once before, on p. 91.
R.C.M.P. (p. 1011) — Royal Canadian Mounted Police; "Mounties, O."
Eschaton (p. 1012) — real theology: the end of days; also that E.T.A. game named around p. 152 and still unexplained.
Boswell (p. 1012) — Samuel Johnson's biographer; shorthand for a devoted profiler.
1759 / Plains of Abraham (p. 1014) — real: Britain takes Québec City; the conquest all Separatist grievance runs back to.
Tenuate (p. 1016) — real prescription diet pill, a stimulant; what's wearing off in Pemulis's wobbly eye.

After you read: three things

1. Read the two documents up front as the call's real frame. Avril's chirpy "Dear Filbert" letter — bumblebee siege, grammar-PAC news, "Chortling is good. We like chortling" — and the reply such letters invariably get: a misspelled form letter and an autographed action photo of ORIN INCANDENZA #71, sent to his own mother, "Cordjally, Jethro Bodine" (pp. 1006–07). Every swerve of the conversation that follows circles the person those two documents are about, until Hal finally says so out loud (p. 1016).

2. You can hear what Hal can't. Orin's "basically nonsocial call" needs help with questions from his journalist-profiler: what does s-a-m-i-z-d-a-t mean, and why would the Mad Stork's name "come up in connection with" it (p. 1011). Hal answers like a dictionary. But you were on the mountainside on pp. 87–93, where that word was applied to a cartridge that stops everyone who looks at it — and the profiler here, "a girl and a half in all directions," may remind you of a hugely, badly built lady you met there. The note asserts none of this; the questions just sound different to you than to Hal.

3. The ending is not a misprint. Keep one eye on Pemulis from his pantomime entrance (p. 1016) — the zipping, the mimed wristwatch, the whispered negotiation under two pillows — through to the moment he's "casually dusting" the phone console's power unit. The note dies mid-word ("in connec—," p. 1021) because he flips the toggle. That's the last line; the sub-footnotes a–l follow.

Written only from this endnote and pages before its callout on p. 309. Safe to read before you start.