What happened to Against the Blog?

What happened was that I read the last two hundred-plus pages in a single day, putting me even more woefully behind than usual, and then I got horrifically bogged down writing and grading papers and, well...I'm still totally all about the book, but the further away you get the more difficult, to say nothing of irrelevant, it becomes. I may go back to it when I get sufficiently far-advanced in the audiobook, but doing more now would do no good to anybody. Assuming that the previous entries did.

Against the Blog: 4-9

NOTE: And...this is where my strength gave out.
-04/07/10

So now, I'm listening to the audiobook version of the novel. Fifty-three and a half hours! The narrator's quite good, actually. Does different voices, including accents and dialects, quite well.

Cyprian Latewood and Bevis Moistleigh, headed to Bosnia to see what's what. On the ship, they meet a girl named Jacintha Drulov and her guardian, Lady Quethlock. Cyprian, from various small details, suspects that this is "a Lady Spy and her apprentice." Bevis is smitten with the girl. There's dancing, and stuff, and Bevis is unhappy to have to leave. But he does, and there they are in Sarajevo. They meet with the guy they're supposed to protect, Danilo Ashkil, a peripatetic Jew who knows fuckloads of languages. And now he's in danger, it is alleged.

Against the Blog: 4-8

This entry appears before the last one because of the inelegant way blogger handles saving drafts. Awesome!

Vienna!

Austria's gonna annex Bosnia, so Theign orders Cyprian to go there to see what's what. Bevis Moistleigh goes along as well.

Meanwhile, Yashmeen loses her job and gets kicked out of her flat in for being a dirty Jew. Ominous to say the least. There's also a lot of talk about geopolitics that makes my brain hurt. Cyprian offers to put her in touch with this Vlado Clissan fellow who can allegedly help her...when they first meet, sheltering from a storm under an awning, they have a sexual encounter that I think any court would probably classify as rape. But, she's nonetheless fascinated by him. This is all part of her highly polymorphous sexuality, I suppose.

So anyway, there they are. They go to Venice. I have to admit, my memory of this whole Vlado thing is a bit on the vague side. Fortunately, he'll be dead soon enough.

Against the Blog: 4-7

If I can manage one a day, I'll be done, oh, probably by the end of the month. I'm not sure how many more sections there are. Big fat fuckin if, though.

Chums of Chance. Shambhala! It has been revealed by the Tunguska Event. There's also some talk about the Event maybe having destroyed the temporal barrier sort of thing between them and the rest of the world.

They arrive at the scene of the event shortly after the Russians. The Trespassers, speculates Lindsay, little realizing that Pynchon inexplicably DROPPED that particular storyline and is never gonna pick it back up. Somewhat baffling, unless there's something I'm missing. Which is very possible.

Vanderjuice contacts them from Tierra del Fuego--apparently, that's on precisely the opposite side of the globe from Tunguska, and all sorts of crazy shit went down there as well. Darby namechecks Tom Swift (794). Tee hee.

They meet with the Russians to consult. They end up talking about investment schemes, which seems to lend credence to the whole "mortality" thing. More involved in worldly concerns, and that.

They find that the Siberian wilderness has become an industrial wasteland, and the sky is filled with commercial airships. A vision of the future? I have no idea what Siberia's like nowadays.

Ominous foreshadowings:

Was it Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation? An unprecedented harrowing of the steppe by cavalry in untold millions, flooding westward in a simultaneous advance? German artillery of a secret design more powerful by orders of magnitudes than any military intelligence office had ever suspected? Or something which had not quite happened yet, so overflowing the tidy frames of reference available to Europe that it had only seemed to occur in the present, though really originating in the future? Was it, to be blunt, the general war which Europe athis summer and autumn would stand at the threshold of, collapsed into a single event? (797)

Dally's still moping around about Kit. It's implied that she and the princess with whom she's boarding have had some sort of sexual contact. Hunter's off messing around with his own ghosts.

Meanwhile, at Trieste, Cyprian is consulting with a cryptologist named Bevis Moistleigh. A porn name if ever I heard one. I'll let you in on a little secret: Cyprian, in whom I had little interest at first, ends up becoming the most interesting character in the novel.

Bevis is decrypting stuff. As you do if you're a cryptologist, I reckon. He's having trouble 'cause it's a complex code. Derrick Theign pops his head in to check on them. Theign ends up betraying the organization and getting tortured to death. Boy, I'm a regular Cassandra here, amn't I?

Reef meets up again with Ruperta at Marianbad (there's no indication of why exactly he's going where he's going, which I think is part of the point--Reef's turns out to be pretty interesting too). They fuck, but halfheartedly. One night, precipitously escaping from a jealous husband, he here's a voice from the heavens telling him to cut out all this crap and rededicate himself to actual real-world stuff--like revenge, for instance. Super wholesome!

Yashmeen's in Vienna. Boy, everyone's turning up in this chapter. She's working in a dress shop, where she runs into Noellyn, her friend and sometime lover from her English schoolgirl days. Noellyn is wearing a previously-alluded-to Silent Frock, that blots out all noise. I have NO idea what this particular contrivance is supposed to signify. It doesn't exactly DO a whole lot.

Anyway, they have sex. Big surprise. Something about the Tunguska Event is fucking with time, so it keeps being night.

All of this malarkey goes on for a month. Then, it stops. And so does the section.

Against the Blog: 4-6

Let's see if I can do an Against the Blog segment in spite of being a little drunk.

The Tunguska Event happens. What caused it? It is a mystery! Padzhitnoff (you know, the commander of the Russian Chums of Chance counterpart) thinks it may have been Germans. The natives think it was their thunder god. What is the truth???

Kit and Prance witness it also. Huh, they think.

Crazy stuff is going on in the wake of the event, like mosquitoes drinking vodka and wolves reciting Bible passages in Old Slavonic. Then, they stop.

Kit and Prance separate, and the latter is picked up by our friends the CoC. The former falls in with a group of directionless former convicts. Later, he meets a party of travelers which includes--whaddaya know?--Fleetwood Vibe. He tells Kit that his father has gone crazy; none of the offspring expect to see any inheritance money. Scarsdale TOTALLY gets killed much later, by none other than Foley Walker. It's great. Sorry; that was a spoiler. But I guess this whole thing is. Never mind! Colfax is playing professional baseball. La! 'Wood is searching for a secret, hidden railroad out here. Bonne chance!

Kit leaves sometime during the night.

Against the Blog: 4-5

Prance stayed back in Irkutsk, but Kit and Hassan reach lake Baikal. But the REAL goal is to get to "the greaet stone at the mouth of the Angara, where the river flow[s] out of the lake," sez Hassan. What about the Doosra's master? asks Kit. You've already spoken to him, sez Hassan. And then he's gone. Dood.

Back in time a bit: to get where they were going, they had to pass through a big ol' stone gate--otherwise, you won't be able to go where you're going, allegedly. A metaphysical thing. And as they pass through, Kit has a vision, accompanied by deafening choral sound,of terrain leading to a mysterious city. And that's that.

So they tramp onwards. It's kind of picaresque. Hassan cultivates marijuana or something like from plants found along the way. The wind howls; wolves howl. Onward.

Irkutsk is "a peculiar combination of rip-roaring and respectable" (773). There, they're meant to report to a British smuggler named Swithin Poundstock. Hassan is gone, but he left a bag o' hemp for Poundstock, who pays them in large, counterfeit coins.

So the geopolitical situation in the area: there are three Tunguska river basins, the Upper, Stony, and Lower, each with a different warring clan. And there's a shaman named Magyakan who acts on behalf of the inhabitants of the Lower. So...onward and upward, I guess.

Search search search. Prance (who I thought wasn't supposed to be here; either I'm misreading, or Pynchon screwed up slightly) suggests that

"Differences among the world religions are in fact quite trivial compared to the common enemy, the ancient and abiding darkness which all hate, fear, and struggle against without cease"--he made a broad gesture to indicate the limitless taiga all around them--"Shamanism. There isn't a primitive people anywhere on Earth that can't be found practicing some form of it. Every state religion, including your own, considers it irrational and pernicious, and has taken steps to eradicate it." (777 fever!)

As it turns out, Prance is working for the British government in some undefined way. And that is seriously all.

Against the Blog: 4-4

Hoo boy. So I just finished the novel--now let's see if I can plow through four hundred more pages' worth of blogging. Of course, it wasn't supposed to be like this--the whole initial idea was to provide impressions as I read. I think that idea was probably doomed from the start, however. Ah well--onward and upward! I think the book's final sections (not that we're quite there yet) may be its best.

So okay. Reorient. Kit is heading west to Asia to find Auberon Halfcourt--who, it turns out, was never actually lost but is living like a lord (dig the alliteration!) in Kashgar. He has a Russian counterpart, Colonel Yevgeny Prokladka, just across the way, enjoying a similar lifestyle.

The main concern here and now is an allegedly-man prophet known only as "the Doosra," operating somewhere to the north and causing trouble. Disrupting trade routes and whatnot. A messenger comes bearing a message from him. His name is "Al Mar-Fuad." He's wearing "English hunting tweeds and a deerstalker cap turned sideways," and he pronounces R sounds as W's. Geddit? El Oh El.

Anyway, the Doosra's message is simple: the city must be surrendered to him.

A brief flashback to when Auberon purchased Yashmeen from the slave market. His initial attraction to her was not entirely paternal, but he seems to have gotten over this.

A Lieutenant Dwight Prance, formerly "a scholar of geography and languages at Cambridge," is in residence out here as well. Geopolitics are discussed. I have to admit, most of this sort of went over my head, and I don't think it ultimately impacts the story that much. Though I might be wrong.

Auberon, having "decided to resurrect a long-shelved plan to project a mission eastward to establish relations with the Tungus living east of the Yenisei," asks Kit to undertake this delightful mission. What the hell, he thinks. Maybe this is what I'm meant to be doing. Prance is to accompany him.

The next day: the Doosra shows up, "younger than Kit had imagined and lack[ing] gravitas." He informs our heroes that he is, in fact, only a subordinate, and that they should talk to his master, up north. He sends a fellow named Hassan to help Kit and Prance out.

ROAR!

A brief note on the Super Traverse Bros.

Yeah I know, Against the Blog badly needs updating. WILL DO! But now I just want to note a brief thought.

So basically, Reef Traverse will fuck anything that moves. I was bemused by the attempted bestiality scene a while back, but that scene--along with many others on the same theme, albeit less over-the-top--that he's more or less a slave to urges, and he doesn't care much about what the target is. In the chapter I just read he enthusiastically broke the homosexuality barrier with Cyprian. Pynchon puts a lot of sort of crude American vernacular in his mouth, which clashes noticeably with the sensibilities of the European characters around him, and Yashmeen even refers to him as a cowboy with very uncomplicated sexual desires. So is it fair to say that this represents a view of America--running roughshod over the world, fucking the shit out of everything without much concern for the consequences? Reef does exhibit some remorse over abandoning his infant son, but it's kind of too little too late. It seems like a fair hypothesis.

By contrast, Frank seems sort of asexual--Pynchon may have alluded to him having a partner or two earlier; I don't remember--but it's certainly not a big part of his life. Kit is somewhere in the middle. Lake--who knows? She hasn't gotten a lot of screentime compared to her brothers.

So: Reef, id; Frank, ego; Kit, super-ego. Is that overly reductionist? Nonetheless, it sort of rings true to me.

Against the Blog: 4-3

Scarsdale Vibe in Venice, with Foley Walker. Scarsdale is suspicious about Kit's disappearance from Germany. Scarsdale is here collecting art, as I may or may not have mentioned before. Scarsdale is using underwater breathing gear to inspect a submerged mural, and Foley is repeatedly tempted to cut off his air supply. But, he doesn't, to our regret.

Kit and Reef are covertly observing them--will they be able to pwn Scarsdale in this setting? They meet up with Dally Rideout, along with Hunter Penhallow. Dally is still kind of attracted to Kit. Ruperta is here to. Apparently, Hunter knows her from somewhere. Dally offers to help with the whole assassination thing.

Andrea Tancredi. An anarchist with visions of Venice's fiery destruction, whom everyone has totally forgotten about because he appeared ONCE before, a long way back. Dally was attracted to him then, although seemingly that never went anywhere. Anyway, he's here.

At a ball that night where Kit and Reef are going to make their move, Tancredi, trying to preëmpt them, is shot and killed by Vibe's bodyguards. Do you know how few actual named characters have been killed throughout this book so far? Bloody few, is how many: Webb Traverse, Sloat Fresno, now Tancredi...there was that guy that Fleetwood Vibe ordered to drop down a mineshaft way back when, but I don't think he was named. I'm probably forgetting someone, but it really seems as though, with all this shit blowing up left and right, more people should be biting the dust.

The Super Traverse Bros' cover is blown; they have to get out. Kit and Reef's parting is fractious, and Dally is upset that Kit has abruptly left her AGAIN.

Against the Blog: 4-2

I'll finish this if it kills me. And it just might.

Who is back in Vienna? Cyprian is back in Vienna.

Who does he meet there? He meets Yashmeen Halfcourt there.

How is she doing? She is somewhat shaken by world events and by possible conspiracies and whatnot in her own life.

Who do they meet with? They meet with Ratty McHugh.

What do they talk about? They talk about all sorts of geopolitical business that it is difficult for me to adequately summarize.

What do they do then? They go to a café.

What sexual act does she perform on him at the café? She gets him off under the table with her foot.

What does Cyprian experience? Sexual confusion.

What does he do next? He returns to Venice, when he was summoned.

How does Derrick Theign react to the thing with Yashmeen? He reacts in an enraged manner, as this somehow ruins years of work.

Is it somehow useful to write these entries in catechism format? It is not useful so's you'd notice.

Against the Blog: 4-1

This section comprises most of the rest of the book. La.

Cyprian Latewood. As you will OF COURSE remember, he was Yashmeen's flame (kind of? maybe?) back in England, in spite of being a "sodomite." How he is in Trieste, monitoring ships and whatnot.

But what he REALLY does is work as a prostitute--he makes contact with two Russians named Misha and Grisha who arrange for him extremely clandestine meetings with a mysterious colonel. If you fucking tell ANYONE about this, EVER, you are fucking DEAD, they tell him. Fair enough. His duties mainly involve being stripped, tied up, and whipped.

He runs into his old schoolchum Ratty McHugh, and decides, seemingly on a whim, and probably partially because it's such a dangerous thing to do, that he wants out. Ratty knows people in British intelligence who might be able to help, and he introduces him to a functionary named Derrick Theign. Theign helps him get away, threatening the Russians with forged documents meant to demonstrate that Cyprian was their ward, and they corrupted him.

Theign and Cyprian go to Venice for the time being. They end up fucking. Eventually, Cyprian gets transferred to Vienna. And I am done.

Against the Blog: 3-18

Man, I was getting sort of quasi-caught-up, but now I've stepped up my reading pace because I want to write about the novel for a class, so now I'm way behind again. I've read up to page eight hundred; we're only at 678 with Against the Blog. Ah well. Qu'est qu'on peut faire?

This section is back in England. Lew, Nigel, and Neville are at a jolly musical about Jack the Ripper. Professor Renfrew is there as well. Lew encounters Max Khäutsch, who, you might remember if you read these entries over and over really, really obsessively, was the bodyguard who helped Lew mind the Archduke Ferdinand waaaaaaay back. Now he's a colonel. What is he doing here? He's guarding Renfrew's counterpart and rival, the German Werfner, who also happens to be in town.

Later on, Lew has twin epiphanies: first, that Nigel and Neville are, in fact, only pretending to be buffoonish fops; and second, that Renfrew and Werfner are, like, totally the same person. So he goes and does research on bilocation and whatnot to try to figure this shit out. He ends up chatting with a Swiss "alienist," who puts forth the theory that Renfrew/Werner is acting out some inner contradiction by being two different people representing countries with opposing interests.

The Grand Cohen (Nickolas Nookshaft! No, I will never cease to find this name amusing) had suggested to Lew, in an oblique way, that maybe it wouldn't be totally bad if something bad happened to RenWer. But, he doesn't. He DOES wonder how much of all this crazy shit has happened to him, and how much to some bilocated version of himself.

After visiting Renfrew, he catches a brief glimpse of the nefarious Gentleman Bomber, but he gets away. Is Lew the Gentleman Bomber also? Anyway, he decides to quit this TWIT lark and set up his own thing.

...et section le troisième, elle est finis!

Against the Blog: 3-17

So you remember, Kit and Yashmeen, pretending to be a couple, traveling to Switzerland. La la la. They visit Reimann's grave, where Yashmeen recalls how when she was a young lass in Russia, her father would take in various fugitives of some sort whom "the government feared...more than it feared Social Democrats, more than bomb-throwers" (663). I'm not sure what this is getting at--are we talking about Trespassers? Or is there some historical context that would make things clear?

So anyway, they're meant to meet up with some TWIT people in "the fabled Sanatorium Böpfli-Spazzoletta," where there is a fraternal reunion between Kit and Reef. And...er...this next part sorta may lend credence to people who would contend that Pynchon is just goofing around with this novel. So Ruperta has a lapdog, which, Reef somehow infers, has been trained "to provide intimate 'French' caresses of the tongue for the pleasure of its mistress." SO ANYWAY:

"Oboy, oboy." He stroked the diminutive spaniel for a while until, with no warning, she jumped off the couch and slowly went into the bedroom, looking back now and then over her shoulder. Reef followed, taking out his penis, breathing heavily through his mouth. "Here, Mouffie, nice big dog bone for you right here, lookit this, yeah, seen many of these lately? Come on, smells good don't it, mmm, yum!" and so forth, Mouffette meantime angling her head, edging closer, sniffing with curiosity. "That's right, now, o-o-open up...good girl, good Mouffette now let's just put this--yaahhgghh!

Reader, she bit him. (666)

So yeah, I laughed, and I get the Jane Eyre echo, but uh...well, I dunno; maybe it's just meant to be farcical, but how is one supposed to take Reef at all seriously after this? WELL NEVER MIND. MOVING ON.

It seems like Yashmeen and Kit might be sort of on the verge of actually starting something, but then he doesn't say the right thing, and they don't.

Scarsdale Vibe is in Europe, Reef tells Kit. Buying fine art. Kit immediately wants to make him dead. This is largely because he feels guilty at having accepted the patronage of the presumed agents of his father's death. Reef sort of agrees with this, but easier said than done. If only we could talk to pa! But...wait a second, here's TWIT's resident medium, Madame Natalia Eskimoff! Reef is skeptical, but they decide to try a channeling. It doesn't seem to be working, but then, using Reef as a conduit, they're able to get through to him. He sort of half-apologizes for alienating his family, but they're unable to get him to answer, with absolute certainty, whether he was killed at Scarsdale's behest.

Ruperta and Yashmeen end up getting it on, I'll note, because everyone likes salacious details.

Anyway, Kit and Yashmeen part--he's going West; she's going to Austria then Hungary to participate in some sort of psychic experiment for TWIT.

And that's about it.

Against the Blog: 3-16

Reef, in fact, is working digging tunnels through the mountains in the Austrian Alps, along with Flaco, the explosive guy he met in New Orleans. One of the other workers is an Albanian named Ramiz. Ramiz relates an alleged custom of the region where a wronged family is allowed to take one shot at the guy who wronged them, but if he survives the day, they can't do any more as long as the family remains on their property. So Ramiz's family is thus stranded. But he escaped. What does this say about the Traverse family's quest for revenge? Not sure.

There be tatzelwurms in these mountains! Arr! Reef doesn't believe it at first, until he saves Ramiz by driving one off with a jackhammer. So the point is, they DO exist!

Ruperta. The indolent Englishwoman who was Reef's fuckbuddy for a while back in the states. Why is she here? DON'T ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS. They rekindle things for the time being, 'cause why not?

These tunnels are haunted, and a spirit berates Reef for wasting his time here when he should be looking after Stray and Jesse (his son), and avenging Webb. Who? It is a mystery blarg!

Against the Blog: 3-15

Yup. Reef's ex, Stray, is now a weapons dealer, and Frank meets up with her about the business thingie that was started in the last chapter but which I didn't understand because it was sort of confusing. All these odd place names! Their conversation is fairly awkward, as you might expect. Frank is sure that Reef lives yet; Stray, not so much. The meet a menacing fellow known as Hatch. He thinks he's being cheated somehow, not sure how, but anyway, that's why he's menacing. But then Ewball appears, and tensions are broken.

Stray has heard that Frank pwn3d Sloat Fresno, but that he's not that keen on going after Deuce unless he happens to randomly come upon him. He's been having recurring dreams about Webb, though.

So anyway--after the deal's done, they part. Will they meet again? They don't know. Maybe!

And that's it. Another short section.

Against the Blog: 3-14

Frank on the Mexican border. He runs into Ewball Oust again (love that name), and the two of them get a little gunrunning business going. And whaddaya know, they happen to meet Günther.

Some old acquaintance of Ewball, formerly called "Steve," now "Ramón," invites them to a little party. There, he gets involved in some sort of gunrunning deal that involves a guy named Eusebio Gómez, who turns out to actually be Wolfe Tone O'Rooney, whom Reef knew in New Orleans. This is getting a bit soap operatic. He's looking for weapons to fight for Irish independence and whatnot.

Okay, ONE more old acquaintance, and THAT'S ALL! Dwayne Provecho. The guy who betrayed Frank and Ewball after their escape from the Mexican prison. He gets an initial hostile reception, as you might expect, but then he tells them about some heavy weaponry that they can make use of in their business.

And that's all. Short section. Is this becoming less coherent, or is it just me? Possibly both. I'm reading more slowly lately, but I'm still habitually a hundred pages behind where I am in reading, postwise. I'm enjoying it, but it's sort of difficult, as you would imagine, to really get a grip on such a long, unwieldy novel, especially when you have all these academic and social distractions breathing down your neck. But persevere we will!

Against the Blog: 3-13

Kit learns that, rather predictably, his fundage from Vibecorp has been cut off.

TWIT wants Yashmeen to return to their fold, apparently. They talk about math.

OH NOES! Kit sees Scarsdale Vibe's henchman Foley Walker! Walker threatens him in a vague sort of way.

The drug of choice for mathematicians in Göttingen is chloral hydrate. At one of their little gatherings, it turns out that Kit's pal Humfried has overdosed on this stuff, so they pump coffee in him, but he still needs medical attention, so Kit offers to take him to the hospital, until he is accosted by Foley, which...doesn't seem to lead to anything. In the hospital, Humfried vanishes, so they decide to hospitalize Kit instead, onaccounta being crazy.

So Kit's stuck in this sanitarium. Bummer. But then he's contacted by a TWIT agent, who is there in disguise--this part riffs a bit on the JFK "Ich bin ein Berliner" thing:

"He will not harm you," Dr. Dingkopf assured him as attendants adroitly steered the patient away. "He has come to believe that he is a certain well-known pastry of Berlin--similar to your own American, as you would say, Jelly-doughnut." (626)

This individual gets Kit sprung and meets Yashmeen--they meet up with Twit travel coördinator Lionel Swome, who tells them that they're to go to Switzerland, pretending to be eloping. This has something to do with Shambhala. From there, Yashmeen's supposed to go somewhere, while Kit travels east to Asia. He's meant to check up on Yashmeen's pa, Auberon.

Before leaving, Kit, Yashmeen, and Günther decide to pay a visit to the "Museum der Monstrositäten." There are math-related exhibits. Of course. Günther's traveling to Mexico, to look after one of his family's coffee plantations. And...that's about all.

Against the Blog: 3-12

Lew Basnight in London. He meets with Police Inspector Vance Aychrome. Aychrome tells him about an antiques dealer named Lamont Replevin, who is currently representing the Hanged Man in the tarot thing we have going on that I don't totally understand. Replevin is apparently a devotee of a new kind of communication via coal-gas. They transfer some sort of wave via the gas. Apparently. He's involved in the Shambhala business, and the Inspector wants TWIT to look into it. The Grand Cohen (Nicholas Nookshaft--I shall never cease to be amused by that name) later tells him that this Replevin actually has a map of Shambhala. Which, of course, you need a paramorphoscope to view.

So Lew goes to check it out.

He picks the guys lock, and finds him, appropriately for the Hanged Man, hanging upside down. With his head in the stove. But, as it turns out, he's not dead; he was just enjoying the latest installment of a gas-borne soap opera, The Slow and the Stupefied. Lew says he broke in because he smelled gas, and that he's an insurance underwriter. Lew suggests that he might want burglary insurance for all his antiquities, and with this as a pretext is taken to see them. And there's the map! He takes photographs, surreptitiously taking some of the map itself.

Then, he takes his leave. A rather short section.

Against the Blog: 3-11

Yes, I am aware that this blog has pretty much devolved into Tinsley with occasional bursts of Pynchon. Ricocheting from one side of the talent scale to the other, for sure. Maybe someday soon I'll do a random ten to spice things up.

Kit in Göttingen, where he meets Yashmeen. They flirt for a while. About math, of course. Kit scribbles down a supposed solution to the Riemann theorem that has Yashmeen so obsessed. To quote a previous Pynchon novel, the only real fucking is done on paper. But then, Kit's comical flatmates, Humfried and Gottlob, return, breaking up the romantic interlude. Yashmeen excuses herself by walking through a wall, to Kit's bemusement. Gottlob talks about a religious war that's going on between rival mathematical theorists.

The Russian Revolution of 1905 happens. At least now we can place events temporally. Albeit just for this section. Kit starts noticing Russians in town. We learn a bit about Yashmeen's background:

My parents were Russian. When we lived on the frontier, my family and I one day were taken in a raid and sold as slaves. Some time later, Major Halfcourt found in a bazaar in Waziristan and became my second father. (595)

She has become involved with "a wealthy coffee scion named Günther von Quassel" (596). He too uses math as a flirtation devise. This seems to be becoming one of the novel's major preoccupations.

Here's a paragraph that I find funny:

"As a crime," Humfried pointed out, "often of the gravest sort, committed in a detective story, may often be only a pretext for the posing and solution of some narrative puzzle, so romance in this town is often pursued as little beyond a pretext for running in and out of doors, not to mention up and down stairs, while talking nonstop and, on auspicious days, screaming." (597)

Finding Yashmeen at Kit's flat (not that they're actually having an affair), Günther has no choice but to challenge Kit to a duel. Every epic novel needs one!

There's a big ol' crowd to watch them, but they start arguing about some proof of Günther's (I'm having a hard time figuring out what this is, exactly), and the crowd gets bored and disperses. They end up not fighting.

Math! Math! Math! And I am SO done with this section.

Against the Blog: 3-10

Yeah, the slowdown of these updates is rather inevitable--I'm consumed with schoolwork, and I'm also (allegedly) teaching reluctant freshmen how to write this semester, so there's a certain amount of stress in my life. But rest assured, I will continue Against the Blog, at whatever pace. Hell, I'm more than halfway through; it would be ridiculous to give up at this point.

The Zombini family in Venice. We learn that one of the family's ancestors, Niccolò, was apprenticed to a family of mirror-makers on an island called Isola degli Specchi, who, being fanatical about their secrets, would not let anyone leave on pain of death. But Niccolò escaped, and the rest is history. Whether or not the island actually exists is doubtful. It varies, you might say. But Luca and Bria (his eldest daughter) visit anyway. Records of Niccolò are sketchy, but it seems he designed a paramorphoscope. The doubling thing. Luca explains to the guy they're talking to, Professore Svegli, about how he doubled a number of people. How to get them back together? he wonders. Not easy--you'd have to get the two of them back into the contraption. But because now they're no doubt all leading separate lives, this is unlikely to work.

Dally's fallen in love with Venice, and the family is going to go on without her Erlys is upset and blames herself for abandoning her daughter &c.

She works performing acts of legerdemain and the like. One day she meets "an English painter type," Hunter Penhallow--yup, the guy who appeared a long, long way back, was briefly on the Étienne, and ended up traveling into the future, maybe. He didn't seem to really have much purpose back then, but now he's back, and he pays Dally to model for him. Hunter is a refugee from a war that has yet to take place.

The two are not romantically involved. This must be made clear. She thinks maybe he's hitting on her at one point, but then, not really--she never sees him hitting on anyone. She, being, oh, I don't know, it must be eighteenish, has frequent moments of lust, and has to get herself off discreetly at night.

At some point, Hunter decides to start painting at night, which is okay with Dally, because it's easier for her to sleep in the daytime, and not have to fend off predatory men preying on naïve young American girls.

Bria comes to town to visit her. Not sure how long it's been. As some review I read somewhere noted, Pynchon here depicts more and better interactions between women than he has in the past.

One day, he introduces her to his friend Andrea Tancredi, an anarchist-type who fierily preaches the destruction of Venice. He does apocalyptic kind of paintings. She is highly attracted to him. And that is the end of this section.