“They’ll be in barracks and they’ll have to learn to polish their own boots again.”

As the Marines prepare to ship out, Bobby Shaftoe looks deploringly at the soldiers who have grown too comfortable. They have forgotten how to take care of themselves, so that the suggestion that they will need to polish their own boots feels like a major imposition. Bobby is distinguished by his refusal to accept this comfortable form of life.

“These giant stones you are walking on were quarried in Mexico, centuries and centuries ago, before America was even a country.”

The stones laid on the floor of the Church of San Agustin represent the intergenerational legacy which goes beyond years, decades, and even centuries. The stones were brough to Manila “before America was even a country” (47), yet they have endured. One day, Bobby will repeat this lesson to his own son, creating an intergenerational legacy which mirrors that of the stones and The Intergenerational Legacies of War and Trauma.

“The words stay with him like the clap.”

Lawrence compares words to venereal disease, a suitable comparison for someone who will dedicate his wartime experience to safeguarding information. The power of words to spread and infect through base human behavior and a lack of care foreshadows Lawrence’s involvement in the world of cryptography, speaking to Mathematics and Cryptography as Both Art and Weapon. His goal will be to prevent the spread of such infections.

“He remembers Nanking, and what the Nips did there. What happened to the women.”

Bobby uses various racial slurs throughout the novel, revealing his prejudice against Japanese people. He remembers the brutality of Nanking and, in particular, what the Japanese did to women during the attack. This fills him with loathing and a sense of purpose, but it also means he sees all Japanese people as one undifferentiated mass instead of as individuals.

“Never mind. Believe me, in some circles it’s as well known as the value of pi.”

Avi’s comment is a subtle joke. The exact value of pi is almost impossible to represent numerically, so pi itself is reduced to a mathematical formula. Likewise, the exact nature of the Dentist’s marriage is understood through a series of inferences and calculations. The formula is known, even if the exact details are not.

“Its real duty is to be observed.”

As Lawrence learns, many of the missions undertaken by the military in World War II are actually theatrical performances. They are designed to convey a false meaning, to project a version of reality to the enemy which disguises the truth. The real duty of the planes, for example, is to be observed, rather than to observe. The true war is being fought through cryptography, while the outward projection of war is a cunning performance to hide the truth, reflecting Secrecy, Surveillance, and Power Across Eras.

“It is a terrible racist slur.”

Randy unknowingly casts judgement on his forebears in the novel through his reluctance to employ various racial slurs. The racism of the characters in the 1940s is a key difference from the characters in the 1990s. Randy’s comments show an awareness of the change in cultural norms, and how wartime tensions no longer determine attitudes towards nations like Japan in a postwar world.

“To Randy and the others, the business plan functions as Torah, master calendar, motivational text, philosophical treatise. It is a dynamic, living document.”

In the business plan, Avi has created his own version of the Cryptonomicon. These living texts are scattered throughout the novel, representing compendiums of shared knowledge. The living document mimics the Cryptonomicon, hinting at the extent to which the religious text of cryptography will eventually become an inseparable part of the business itself.

“The codebooks are stacked inside as neatly as gold bars.”

The codebooks which are recovered from the Japanese soldiers are compared in the narrative to gold bars. In the context of the war, they are more valuable than gold. They represent an opportunity to crack enemy codes and uncover the truth behind enemy communications. For those fighting an existential war, this is much more valuable than a precious metal, invoking mathematics and cryptography as both art and weapon.

“Trying to crack the code used on these sheets will be a perfect puzzle to fill the gaping void that opened up as soon as Waterhouse broke the combination of the safe.”

For Lawrence, much of cryptography is an abstraction. It is a series of puzzles which he uses to satisfy his curious mind. Once a puzzle is solved, he craves another, often without knowing or understanding the implications of his solution. Lawrence’s mind is chasing one “perfect puzzle” (308) after another as a means of proving his own ability to himself.

“I don’t like the word ‘addict’ because it has terrible connotations.”

Root is one of the most empathetic characters. He recognizes that Bobby has a morphine dependency, a condition likely caused by the immense about of trauma and violence that Bobby has experienced. Root dislikes the connotations of the word “addict,” believing this to be dehumanizing. He forms a connection with Bobby through this empathy, a small gesture amidst the violence and bloodshed that surrounds them.

“So it seems likely that our guys, Shaftoe and Root, will not survive.”

Throughout the war, Lawrence has treated cryptography as a series of abstract puzzles to be solved. Now, however, he is confronted with the difficult decisions which must be made. To preserve the Allies’ cryptographic advantage, Bobby and Root may be sacrificed. Lawrence cannot think of cryptography in terms of pure math or puzzles, but as something which may lead to the deaths of “our guys” (397), reflecting mathematics and cryptography as both art and weapon.

“The children abandon him to watch a pair of American P-38s fly by, out over the ocean.”

Even on the remote island, Goto Dengo sees the way in which the war has spread. The American airplanes fascinate the children, who are part of a community which seems to have little to no involvement in the global conflict. The war has become inescapable, even for an isolated community such as this.

“The European powers colonized those islands at about the same time as the long cables were being laid.”

The discussion of the history of European technological intervention in Asia is tied to the history of colonialism. Previously, the novel suggests, the Europeans colonized the region through military means. This violence has been replaced by technology. Though the violence is gone, the means of colonial control remain. The cables are colonialism by other means, dictating the flow of information to and from the region at the Europeans’ behest.

“He and Waterhouse have crossed paths a few times, and though they aren’t friends, per se, their minds work the same way. This makes them brothers in a weird family that has only a few hundred members.”

Throughout his life, Lawrence has often felt alienated and alone. In math and cryptography, however, he finds a community of likeminded people. There may only be a few people on the planet who can do what they can do, yet this skills bind them together in a way that feels like an actual relationship. For the first time in his life, Lawrence feels like a part of something. This is why cryptography is so meaningful to him.

“His life, which used to be a straightforward set of basically linear equations, has become a differential equation.”

Lawrence helps to learn about himself and his place in the world through math and cryptography, yet this tendency threatens to overrun his life. When he falls in love with Mary, he tries to explain his romantic feeling in terms of a math analogy. Lawrence has become dependent on the abstract potential of math to explain the feelings that he cannot quite comprehend for himself. For Lawrence, math is a comfortable and familiar language, but it is not always an appropriate one.

“Randy and Amy had spent a full hour talking to Scott and Laura last night; they were the only people who made any effort to make Amy feel welcome.”

When Randy returns to his hometown, he sees his old friends and acquaintances in a new light. The only people who make Amy feel welcome, he realizes, are the same couple whose religious beliefs once seemed so strange and alien to him. This change in attitude shows Randy how much he has changed by being away.

“It has been a long time since he wrote a poem and he can’t make the words go together.”

The war has traumatized Goto Dengo in ways that he cannot express. Before the war, he could compose poetry. Now, however, he has lost his poetic voice. The deep psychological scars the war has inflicted speak to the novel’s interest in the intergenerational legacies of war and trauma.

“The Decisive Battle was yesterday.”

The five short words—with the phrase “Decisive Battle” (662) capitalized to show its importance—represent the end of the war and the end of everything Goto Dengo held to be true. He believed in Japan, his country, and he still clung to the belief that the war might be won. The battle is already over, however, and the Japanese are beyond the point of being able to win. Goto Dengo recognizes his own delusion at last.

“He feels a need to get something into the kid’s head that is going to stick, and this need is stronger than the craving for morphine or sex ever was.”

Bobby has only a short time with his son, Doug, but he is determined to leave an impression on him. He takes Doug to the same cathedral that he once visited with Doug’s mother, Glory. Bobby’s desire to create a meaningful memory shows his awareness of his own mortality. Bobby is a mature man, trying to create a legacy for his son from the little he has available to him. Doug will always remember this one meeting, invoking the intergenerational legacies of war and trauma.

“But the Japanese have to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

Throughout the war, the characters have remarked on the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Army. Massacres such as Nanking have caused the Americans to look upon the Japanese soldiers as though they are not bound by any morality or set of rules. From an economic standpoint, however, the Japanese are beholden to abstract realities. They cannot simply print money, Lawrence notes. In a sense, they are bound by the same rules as everyone else.

“The perfect freedom that Tom’s found in Kinakuta is a cut flower in a crystal vase. It’s lovely, but it’s dead.”

Randy feels a need to create a different kind of freedom compared to the enclosed, sterile freedom of Tom’s compound. His vision for freedom is something more organic and more lasting, one which can be spread to many people rather than hidden behind compound walls. His vision for this freedom is a living, breathing idea which he does not want to limit or restrict.

“But this only sets the stage for the struggle with Communism.”

Comstock tries to recruit Lawrence for the agency which will, one day, becomes the NSA. Yet Lawrence is put off by Comstock’s vision for the future, which suggests that World War II is merely the starting point for an even greater conflict with communism. This vision of a forever war, in which cryptography will be a key weapon, appalls Lawrence. Not only does he turn down the offer, but he leaves a legacy against Comstock in the form of the rewritten Arethusa cards.