Chapter 55: World Change

In 1908, just north of Lake Baikal, a meteor, a piece of an asteroid, or a piece of anti-matter, exploded in the Eath’s atmosphere, an explosion more powerful than any atomic bomb. In UFO lore, this is an event associated with an Alien intrusion, the Siberian Roswell.

This chapter’s beginning, a single sentence, “A heavenwide blast of light” (779), is reminiscent to the beginning of Gravity’s Rainbow, “A Screaming comes across the sky” (3).

This event marks a change, a change in the very fabric of time/space. It seems as if it makes the Chums of Chance mortal again, even as it makes Rudolf and his flying reindeer pals mortal again (784).

It reminds me again of Woolf ‘s contention that around 1910, the world suddenly changed. This period marks the end of the Victorian age and the beginning of modernity, an explosion for which the Tunguska event is an apt metaphor.

At the end of the chapter, after Kit encounters Fleetwood Vibe again, Kit is taken, perhaps raptured into the night by the crew of the Inconvenience?

“But Kit had left sometime in the night, as if taken by the wind” (791).

Chapter 54: Deep Waters

In this chapter Kit arrives at Lake Baikal, an arrival which seems to have deep implications for Kit’s future. This lake in Inner Asia is almost unknown to Americans even though the Wikipedia tells us that it is the deepest lake in the world, with more freshwater than all the Great Lakes combined, and 20% of the Earth’s freshwater.

The chapter ends on a prophetic note: “From time to time, Kit recalled the purity, the fierce shining purity of Lake Baikal, and how he had felt standing in the wind Hassan had disappeared into, and wondered now how his certainty then had failed to keep him from falling now into this bickering numbness of spirit. In view of what was nearly upon them, however—as he would understand later—the shelter of the trivial would prove a blessing and a step towards salvation” (778).

Kit’s quest for “the prophet, Doorsa’a master?” seems lost, or deferred, but Hassan responds to Kit’s question, “Shall I speak to him” by claiming “You spoke to him.” (768). This passage reminds me of Peter Mathiessen’s Himalayan journey, chronicled in The Snow Leopard, where at the end of a journey to find a Zen Master he comes to realize that his modest Sherpa guide was the real Zen Master he was searching for.

Chapter 53: Colonel Halfcourt I Presume?

Structurally, Chapter 53 is a departure from the rest of the novel, beginning as an epistolary, in the form of a letter from Yashmeen to her father, the British spy/diplomat Auberon Halfcourt. Yashmeen is, in many ways, the most interesting character in this novel, certainly the most interesting female character to emerge from Pynchon’s pen. If the novel is a genre-busting critique of the artistic prose form which emerged in parallel with Britain’s emergence as THE Colonial Empire, then Yashmeen—with her Electra complex, Hybrid ethnicity (at the level of Culture rather than Blood), and assertive ownership of her own (Bi) sexuality—is the Post-Colonial Counter-weight to her father’s representation of Empire.

Kit is the carrier of this letter, on a sort of Stanley and Livingtone quest (though also a quest for Shambala), and through this narrative we are finally introduced to Colonel Halfcourt.
Note here the interesting use of the term subaltern (761), which is, according to the AGD wiki, “A junior officer in the British army; now titled second lieutenant in most regiments.” My own familiarity with the term comes from my reading of the Post-Colonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, and her seminal (sic!!!!) text of Post-Colonial Studies “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Her thesis is that Western thought, from Hegel forward, effectively prevents non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human subjects.

As Pynchon has taken some deserved criticism for his seeming inability to create complex female characters (though Oedipa Maas is a bit of a refutation of that criticism), his creation of the Sub-Altern Yashmeen Halfcourt, and her ability to speak deconstructs both the Father (Colonel Halfcourt) and the Paternal Empire he represents.

Speaking of deconstruction, Spivak is also the translator of Derrida’s Of Grammatology!
In her letter, Yashmeen expresses concern that “the T.W.I.T no longer act in my interest” (748). Of course, we wonder whether her adoptive father acts in her interest.
Does the Empire love his daughters (interesting—her seems like the correct pronoun here) or does the empire exploit its colonies?

As we shall see, “Love” carries a lot of weight meaning.

Chapter 52: Soaking Up the Past

Here we find Kit and Reef plotting an assassination of Scarsdale Vibe.

Hoosier reference—as Vibe continues his trip collecting/pillaging Italian art, he has Foley sing “‘On the banks of the Wabash, Far Away’ to a sacristan who might have been insane” (725).

Meanwhile, Kit reunites with Dally, and Reef is back entwined with Ruperta. Dally is staying with the Princess Sponggiatosta. Great Pynchonian name—a Princess, a sponge is the animal on the coat of arms.

Sponge metaphor—soaking up the past again—we of the futurity?

After a botched assassination attempt, not by Reef and Kit, but by the anarchist Tancredi, it appears Vibe has had the boys under surveillance. Tancredi, who may be named after a time traveler in the Brit Sci-Fi series Dr. Who, may be a sacrificial lamb—or do the boys simply live charmed lives?

Kit and Reef split—on bad terms. Reef, convinced Kit never really wanted to assassinate Vibe.

Chapter 51: Something's In The Air

We continue Cyprian’s narrative—now reunited with old Chums Ratty and Yashmeen. Romantic music, revolutionary politics—the smell of modernity is in the air.

In this environment, Yashmeen is “bedeviled by two or three Powers at once” (717-718). And Cyprian, responding to Ratty’s query “Where have you been since we were children at Cambridge,” responds “The suburbs of Hell” (719).

The Balkans, Romanticism, Dracula, Revolution. The intensity of the gathering storm is palpable!

Chapter 50: We of the Futurity!

Chapter 50 begins Part Four of the novel, titled “Against the Day.” In this chapter Cyprian Latewood becomes a major character, now working under the direction of one Derrick Theign, who is known as “The Good Shepherd” (705). Theign seems to have connections to everything: the T.W.I.T, the Admiralty, The British Secret Service, cryptographers (another connection to Neal Stephenson’s work?).

Somehow Cyprian ends up in bed with Theign—but it doesn’t give him any more knowledge of what Theign’s game is.

One of the most interesting things in the chapter occurs when the narrator/Pynchon addresses/refers to himself and the readership as “We of the futurity” (706). Is the narrator and are we readers raiding the past like Ryder Thorn?

Who knows—the Balkans are a land of mystery, and the place where the Victorian age violently exploded into the Modern. Macedonia even!

Chapter 49: In Which the Lens of our Understanding is brought Closer In Focus

At the theatre we find Neville and Nigel, Lew Basnight, and “the co-tenant of Tarot card XV, Professor P. Jotham Renrfew” (679). It’s a musical comedy about Jack-the Ripper—typical Pynchon fare! (Maybe not—maybe more John Waters.)

Actually, it’s not Renfrew, but Werfner, accompanied by Lews Chicago employer, Max Kautsch.

The thousand od speculators, Ripper narratives, “all equally valid” suggests “Multiple worlds” (682).

It seems as if the Grand Cohen wants Lew to assassinate Werfner—hired gone and all. He learns that Werfner and Renfrew were one, in their pre-bilocation days, and he begins to realize that Nigel and Neville are not the idiots they impersonate, but devious agents of TWIT. The N&N twins may have been part of a giant plan, perhaps going all the way back to Chicago. The “twinning” we discover in this is fitting given the title of this section of the book, “Bi-locations,” which this chapter concludes.

Dr. Ghloix notes that “who better than a fallen geographer to be acting this cut, to convey Number XV, The Devil” (686).

On a philosophical note, the Cohen confides in Lew that we are light, “The soul itself is a memory we carry of having once moved at the speed and density of light” (688). The Cohen also thinks the Gentlleman Bomber (Lew or/and his prey) may be one of Rilke’s angels.

T.W.I.T., which is morphing into the insidious “Them” of GR, (and now seems to be parodying secret Masonic conspiracies), disappears, off, it seems, to follow Yashmeen. Lew, feeling released from his T.W.I.T. obligation, returns to routine P.I. work.

Chapter 48: Fathers, fathers, fathers

Kit and Yashmeen visiting the mathematician Riemann’s grave.

Yashmeen tells an interesting story of her childhood in Russia, about strniki, underground men who had once been fathers, husbands, ordinary who simply walked away from their lives to become holy men.

Yashmeen’s father is near Shambala? The holy city?

Yashmeen sees her own exile from Gottingen, holy city of mathematics, in a similar light.

Kit and Reef are reunited in a Swiss Spa near the Italian border. Reef wants Kit to join him in hunting down Scarsdale vibe. For guidance, they attend a séance. Reef goes under, and channels Webb.

Kit desired to speak to his father, who “must use the stripped and dismal metonymies of the dead” (674).

Kit is off to Venice, with Reef, to avenge the father’s death. Yashmeen is off to Vienna and Budapest, subject for some research, perhaps Freudian, her own Electra complex to deconstruct.

Chapter 47: Bigfoot, Meet Nessie!

Reef is blasting tunnels in the Alps.

A comparison is made between Albanian vendettas and the Traverse-Vibe feud.

The mines are threatened by creatures of the mountains, a kind of Bigfoot-Snake, the Tatzelwurm. Here is a great variation on an old Freudian joke:

“It is comforting to imagine this as an outward and visible manifestation of something else,” chuckled one of the Austrians puffing on a cigar stub. “But sometimes a Tatzwelwurm is only a Tatzelwurm” (655).

We learn Vibe is in Europe, and once again, Reef is in a tryst with Rupert Chirpingdon-Groin. A presence, perhaps Webb’s ghost, or some spectre of international socialism, urges Reef to renew the vendetta and hunt down Vibe.

Chapter 46: Hamlet's Ghost

Who is Frank dealing with in this gun deal? Turns out the “middleman” is none other than Stray.

Seems like young Jesse, Reef’s boy is growing up. “Already playin with the dynamite…just like his daddy” (646). And granddaddy.

Frank is still being visited by Webb—Hamlet’s ghost.

Chapter 45: Commerce!

This chapter returns to Frank’s narrative. He meets Gunther in Mexico and also reunites with Ewball Oust. At a party, an old oilhand compares this part of Mexico to Inner Asia, describing it as “Baku with skeeters” (639). In this case, Frank and Ewball end up involved with gunrunning, reminding us of the old GR quote that “the real business of war is buying and selling” (105).

This connection, with Frank in Mexico, Kit in Inner Asia is interesting—where are Reef and Lake?

Chapter 44: On the Road to Kashgar

This chapter adds new meaning to the Theme of Excluded Middles so important to V. In many ways this detour into mathematics is clearly about another binary, this one between the “real” and the “unreal”—whether numbers, or knowledge, or matter, or time. Yashmeen, Gunther, and Kit are all leaving Gottingen, the place where they can philosophically ponder these binaries, for the real world of excluded middles, which as V. reminded us, are “bad shit.” Their visit to the strange mathematics museum accentuates this issue—its use of objects which generally transform themselves from the two-dimensional to the three is illustrative of this. For example, a column in a two dimensional mural merges with a real 3D column in the museum display space.

Gunther is off to Mexico, to “manage one of the family coffee plantations” (635). T.W.I.T. is sending Yashmeen off on a mythical elopement to Switzerland, from which Yashmeen will head East, to places yet to be revealed; and Kit, running from Foley and Vibe’s murderous forces now on his trail, is off to Shambala, the mythical center of Buddhist-Grecian mysticism, or Kashgar, a real city in present day China close to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and all the other –stans, where Yashmeen’s father was last known to be. On a mission for T.W.I.T or some other mysterious force—perhaps even the Godlike voice that speaks to the three as they leave the Museum.

A great meditation on Kit’s itinerary, and the whole notion of this binary:

“As for what lies beneath these sands, you’ve got your choice—either Shambala, as close to the Heavenly City as Earth has known, or Baku and Johannesburg all over again, unexplored reserves of gold, oil, Plutonian wealth, and the prospect of creating another subhuman class of workers to extract it. One vision if you like, spiritual, and the other, capitalist. Incommensurable, of course” (631).

OF COURSE???????

Towards the end of the chapter, a great quote from Gunther, which is going on my office wall, and eventually on my website:

“Fate does not speak. She carries a Mauser and from time to time indicates our proper path” (635).

Chapter 43: On Her Majesty's (Secret?) Service

Lew Basnight, working for both T.W.I.T. and in an unofficial arrangement with the British police is investigating Lamont Replevin, an antiques dealer who may have the mysterious map to Shambala, the one that must be read through a piece of Iceland Spar.

Lew learns about the map from the Grand Cohen, so it appears T.W.I.T. is working with the government,

Replevin is a “Gas-head,” sort of an addict who communicates via a network of gas mains. This Victorian Internet is quite the yuk, as is the T.W.I.T. buffet consumed by the police captain. I laughed especially hard at the idea of vegetarian haggis.

The gas network is reminiscent of the séance and devotees to the sensitive flame in GR.

Lew photographs Replevin’s home, and it appears the map may be there.

Chapter 42: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All!

This chapter is all mathematics! Kit has arrived in Gottingen, where he is lusting after Yashmeen Halfcourt, and also dueling with her over mathematics. Lots of need to look up all the mathematicians and mathematical functions referred to in this chapter.

In many ways the most interesting plot advance is Yashmeen’s latest beau, “a wealthy coffee scion named Gunther von Quassel” (596). Gunther is a jealous sort, and ends up challenging Kit to a duel.

Kit’s friend and roommate Humfried observes this about Gunther:

“He is not ‘here,’” Humfired explained, “not completely. He is slightly…somewhere else. Enough so, to present some inconvenience to any who value his company” (599).

Like the Crew of the Inconvenience, his spatial presence is of an odd nature. Since earlier in the chapter Yashmeen displays an interesting ability to walk through walls, I think we are in for surprises!

Chapter 41: The Lost Canon of Rhetoric

Dally is in Venice, dresses like a boy, and calls herself Beppo. She works as a sales agent and model for Hunter, a budding artist. Like Dally, who could be either a girl or a boy to the casual observer, Hunter has his own ambiguity of appearance—he could be either young or old.

Hunter speaks to Dally of Venice’s lack of knowledge of a great war. Dally is understandably confused:

“It’s so far away the news hasn’t reached here ‘yet’?” She let a breathy go by then. “Or it hasn’t happened ‘yet’?”

Bilocations in space and time—is he an Einsteinean time/space traveler? If energy and matter are one, are time and space one?

Hunter’s response to Dally’s questioning ties in yet another element here—memory, or memoria, the lost canon of rhetoric:

“I wish I could remember. Anything. Whatever the time—reversal of ‘remembering’ is…” (577).

He goes on, making connections reminiscent of Lefevre’s work on space:

“Political space has its neutral ground. But does Time? is there such a thing as a
neutral hour? one that goes neither forward nor back? is that too much to hope?” (577)

In Tancredi, an artist Dally lusts after, we get a brief introduction to Marinetti and futurism.