Bilocations, Chapter Sixteen: The Terrifying Alpine Tatzelwurms!

Reef in the Alps, working with other miners to dig through, the mountains, a tunnel project to connect Switzerland and Italy. It does not sound too fun: "the noise was hellish, the air wet and hot and stifling when it wasn't full of stone dust." One does have to wonder what exactly the appeal of this is to Reef. Wouldn't he rather be card sharping and tomcatting his way through America? Well, anyway, here he is. He's working with all your favorites: "Nikos, Fulvio, Gerhardt, the opera singer, the Albanian." "The Albanian" turns out to be a dude named Ramiz, who is on the run from a Draconian Albanian legal code known as the Kanuni Lekë Dukagjinit, which is a real thing you can look it up.

Reef is ambivalent about being here while Deuce and (as far as he knows) Sloat are back there. He suggests that people back home are starting to take a dim view of avenging one's family: "they tell you 'don't take the law into your own hands?'" (654). So who, then? "The police? But that . . . is to remain a child" (654). He might have a point. I mean, have you SEEN the police lately? Not pretty. This is interesting:

Among the many superstitions inside this mountain was a belief that the tunnel was "neutral ground," exempt not only from political jurisdictions but from Time itself. The Anarchists and Socialists on the shift had their own mixed feelings about history. They suffered from it, and it was also to be their liberator, if they could somehow survive to see the day. (654)

I was always picturing The Day as the sort of general badness of the twentieth century, but could it rather be the other way around: something to be aspired to against the forces of oppression? Dude. Well, could be polysemic like that. Anyway.

Did you know there are these creatures called Tatzelwurms in the tunnels that will murder you, maybe? Well, there are. This seems of a piece with the Tommyknockers back in Colorado and the Hollow-Earth gnomes that the Chums ran into: these kind of secret, at-an-angle-to-reality things. "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 Tatzelwurm is only a Tatzelwurm." (655).

Wait, is...this really Sigmund Freud? Hard to figure how THAT would work. It definitely seems to be Pynchon gently poking at people overanalyzing his work. Like me? I dunno, maybe, but I wouldn't say I'm going TOO nuts.

Who do they run into again but Ruperta Chirpingdon-Groin, Reef's old fuckbuddy (I seriously hate that term, but it seems like the only appropriate one, denotatively and connotatively, under the circumstances) on her spa tour. She's slumming, getting fucked by all the miners and then Reef once again. Whee. Notice I said "getting fucked by" instead of just "fucking," which might sound misogynistic on my part, but I think she'd probably agree with the description--she definitely has that thing, you know, the fantasy of being used by these filthy untermenschen. Whatevs. She does tell him that ol' Scarsdale is around, buying up Rennaissance art in Venice, as you do if you're a tycoon with more money than you can possibly ever figure out a good use for.

Reef ends up encountering a Tatzelwurm, which was attacking Ramiz before he intervenes. It disconcertingly calls his name--"Hello, Reef"--before attacking, but he's able to finish it off with a revolver another miner tosses him. And now Ramiz is in his debt--Albanian codes of honor--so expect to see more of him.

He hears a voice that may be some kind of ghost--why not?--disparaging his lifestyle, futzing around in Europe while he has a wife and kid back home and revenge to be getting. Why aren't you planning to assassinate Vibe RIGHT NOW?!? Huh? But will he? Find out--soon! Maybe.

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