Against the Blog

Here we have the final chapter of "Iceland Spar." It is indeed zany and also probably the densest, most challenging chapter so far. I shall attempt to do it justice. So the Chums are at Candlebrow. Obviously, where they "would find exactly the mixture of nostalgia and amnesia to provide them a reasonable counterfeit of the Timeless" (406). We shall see them being forced to actually interrogate the nature of their existence, and find that some of the implications of that aren't altogether to their liking. But first, let us talk about "Smegmo," "an artificial substitute for everything in the edible-fat category, including margarine, which many felt wasn't that real to begin with" (407), but which is highly profitable for the school. I suppose that's capitalism for you: make people think that the most hideous-sounding shit imaginable is essential for their lives. Candlebrow, like the prevailing economic order, is built on a purely illuso...

We're back with the Chums in a short but portentous chapter. They're in New York, for "ground-leave," receiving occasional messages from the mysterious Chums HQ: they have no idea where these are really coming from. "'Well we are their proletariat, ain't we,' snarled Darby, 'the fools that do their 'dirty work' for next to nothing?'" (397). You sort of thing of the Chums transcending such exploitation, but they're subject to the world as much as anyone else...well, not as much as anyone else. And in different ways. But still. One of the messengers is offended when Lindsay tries to pay him with a commemorative coin from the World Fair ten years prior, and sarcastically declares that "all I need's d' toime machine, I'm in business, ain't I?" (ibid). This causes them to prick up their ears, and they arrange a later meeting with the kid, named "Plug" Loafsley, in "his personal headquarters,...

Back with ol' Frank, who, unlike his brothers, never ends up in Europe. Here, he's in Mexico, or at least "a dime novel of Old Mexico" (374) (simulacra!), having fallen in with a fellow named Ewball Oust (a name that I love), a kid from a rich family trying to make it in Mexico as a mine engineer, but apparently not having much luck. Frank tries to tell him about argentaurum (the alleged silver-gold hybrid created via alchemy, you'll remember), but Ewball immediately cuts to the chase and notes that he, Frank, is really  interested in Iceland Spar. Frank gets work as an amalgamator, and has dreams of Deuce Kindred, mocking him for having let his trail go so cold. But he finds himself always following the same path in every dream, and wakes up "convinced there was an actual counterpart somewhere in this daylit city" (377). Frank and Ewball find themselves under arrest for reasons they don't understand: "they say it was something one of you did a ...

Sorry I couldn't think of a good title. That's the way it goes some days. :( :( :( This is a long, wide-ranging chapter about Reef and his peregrinations. He's wandering through the American west with Stray and their son Jesse, doing his thing as a card sharp and occasionally committing desultory sort of terrorist explosions. It's chaos out there: "the San Juan range was a battleground now, Union miners, scabs, militia, owners' hired guns, all shooting at each other and now and then hitting somebody for a one-way passage into that dark country where they all collected" (362). Stray suggests that "there's a sheriff to take care of it" (ibid), but Reef recognizes the futility of relying on the law. He has an exchange with a sheriff that looks, uh, relevant to our current concerns: "My job is to prevent the sides from tangling," one of these sheriffs tried once to instruct Reef. "No, Burgess, your job is to see that they keep on k...

This one is about Dally, who arrives at New York City with little incident. The first important person she meets is a waitress named Katie, an aspiring actress (of course) working at Schultz's Vegetarian Brauhaus. There are a lot of Chinese people around, notably a gang leader named Mock Duck (okay) and a fake-gang leader Hop Fung, who's in charge of the "white-slave simulation industry," which exists--I guess--to titillate tourists. It's not really clear how they actually make money, since this isn't a stage show; it seems to be more akin to a Happening, where these things are randomly staged in the city streets. But regardless, Dally is hired, and she "began to learn some of the all-but-impenetrable signs and codes, a region of life withheld, a secret life of cities that those gypsy years with Merle had always denied her" (339). Obviously, this "secret knowledge" is a big thing in Pynchon and this book in particular. Anyway, she'...

We rejoin young Kit, who is becoming decreasingly illusioned with his school: "Yale's charm had not only worn away at last but also was revealing now the toxic layers beneath, as Kit came to understand how little the place was about studying and learning, much less finding a transcendent world in imaginaries or vectors" (318). I mean, point taken, but can you imagine hectoring a randomly chosen group of college students: why aren't you finding a transcendent world in vectors?!? What's wrong with you?! Good luck with that one. Anyway, he wants out; "there was no role for his destiny as a Vectorist within any set of Vibe goals he could imagine" (319). Ya think? Note that he doesn't even know yet that Vibe has had his dad murdered. He meets Professor Vanderjuice again, who has become a pizza maniac, obsessed with those "triangular slice[s] from the Italian cheese-and-tomato pastries to be found everywhere in that neighborhood" (320). Vand...