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!