Against the Day, Chapter Seven: More Tunguska Fallout!

That title about covers it. More characters react to the Tunguska event. First, it seems to shove the Chums--temporarily or not, who can say--into a new reality: the city they had been hovering over is now become Shambhala, according to Miles, and who can doubt that guy? "As if those precise light-frequencies which would allow human eyes to see the City had finally been released."

They meet with Padzhitnoff and Company, and we learn that their legal status is very questionable: they're not working for the US government anymore, but they remain evasive about who they are working for. But when they return to what we laughingly call civilization, they find that "the Earth they thought they knew changed now in unpredictable ways" (795)--more industrialization, different wildlife, &c.

Then we get a section about Dally, which frankly I find a little gross:

Dally Rideout...had gone on maturing into an even more desirable young package, negotiable on the Venetian market as a Circassian slave in old Araby, pale redhead's coloring, bruisable skin inviting violent attention, hair gone beyond the untamed spill she had hit town with, now a blazing announcement of desire about which no one was ready to be convinced otherwise. That same summer day, she had been approached scarcely steps from Ca' Spongiatosta by a disagreeable gent with the usual 1894 Bodeo tucked into his belt, no longer willing to cut her any slack. "Tonight, the minute it gets dark, understand? I'm coming for you. Better be wearing something pretty." (797)

Actually..."gross" probably isn't a strong enough word for this. Seriously, Pynchon, what the fuck are you doing? STOP DOING IT. The princess protects her, I guess, but there's some weird implied masochistic lesbian stuff that just feeds into the same gross shit. I don't like it. Not one little bit.

Back to Cyprian in Trieste. He's working with a cryptographer named Bevis Moistleigh (hoo boy). There's code Bevis is trying to crack which makes use of Glagolitic script, only also each character correspond to a number, so it's hard to crack. Will this have any relevance to anything? Not sure. "Something's wrong with the light, Moistleigh" (801) Cyprian remarks when they go outside. Of course there is!

Reef! Ruperta has left him, I'm sorry to say, so he's sort of still doing the spa tour thing, but his heart's not really in it. Sleeping with a Hungarian cavalry officer's wife. Hearing a voice, which seems to be related to the Event, suggesting that he needs to get real, that his current doings are "more likely in your case to result in death by irate Hungarian than anything of more lasting value" (802).

Finally, Yashmeen is working in a dressmaker's shop in Vienna, when who should come in but her old groupie Noellyn. They get back to old tricks (of course), "but look at the sky" (804). Look indeed! And, really, that's it for this chapter, though it does end:

As nights went on and nothing happened and the phenomenon slowly faded to the accustomed deeper violets again, most had difficulty remembering the earlier rise of heart, the sense of overture and possibility, and went back once again to seeking only orgasm, hallucination, stupor, sleep, to fetch them through the night and prepare them against the day. (805).