Against the Blog

Frank's still tangled up in the Mexican Revolution. He's been injured, having been shot and falling off a horse, so he's laid up but recovering in a church. El Espinero, the Indian shaman he'd met way back when, makes an appearance: is Frank dreaming? No, but he's actually there. Who ELSE is there? The other Estrella, Stray, Reef's former partner, somewhat deflatingly "on the arm of some impossibly good-looking Mexican dude" (920) named Rodrigo. She's apparently gotten much tougher, trading hostages with Madero and his people (one of whom this guy she's with is). They smoke a little and he goes back to sleep. This is nice: Frank drifted off and when he drifted back, everybody had left including El Espinero. Stray had put the cigarettes under the rolled-up shirt he was using for a pillow to keep them safe, which seemed such a tender thought he wished he'd been awake for it. (921). Aw. Pynchon can be, uh, not subtle about romance, but then, ...

So this continues from the last chapter. Ol' Clive has the idea that, as appealing as selling her to a harem might be, Dally "might more constructively serve as a bribe to somebody useful" (909). He sends some goons to kidnap her, but who should appear but ol' Kit, who was on a train going in the other direction, to Budapest (styled, probably more accurately, Buda-Pesth here). He gets rid of them by telling them that this is in fact "my wife Euphorbia, yes and we are planning to spend our honeymoon in Constantinople." So they escape, and we get this kind of neat bit: Years later, they would be unable to agree on how they found themselves on the Szécheny-Tér tramline, fleeing into the heart of the city. Kit knew that this was the sort of story grandfathers told to grandchildren, usually so that there could then be a grandmother's version, more practical and less inclined to grant slack...Which is to say that what Kit recalled was running a perilous evasiv...

Dally and Hunter in London, the situation in Venice having become a little too hot for comfort. Ruperta there, too, who is feeling jealous of Dally even though there's no romantic attachment between her and Hunter. To get rid of her, I guess, she introduces her to a man called Arturo Naunt, for whom she becomes a model posing for his "Angel of Death" statues in cemeteries. There's a very odd scene with Ruperta at a concert of Vaughan Williams music: As Phrygian resonances swept the great nave, doubled strings sang back and forth, and nine-part harmonies occupied the bones and blood vessels of those in attendance, very slowly Ruperta began to levitate, nothing vulgar, simply a tactful and stately ascent about halfway to the vaulting, where, tears running without interruption down her face, she floated in the autumnal light above the heads of the audience for the duration of the piece. After this, she is shaken: "You must never, never forgive me, Hunter....I can ne...

So we start with more of this political...stuff. We are informed that "Vlado had been [Cyprian's] one dependable operative, as much as possible in this game his friend" (866), and...wait, what? His friend? Did we ever even see them meet?  I've gotta say, Pynch, as big a fan as I am, all of this Great Game spycraft stuff seems decidedly half-baked. He meets with various people, including his ol' pal Ratty (married now) and the Prince and Princess Spongiatosta. Everyone's thinking about how best to take out Theign, and try as I might, I cannot even begin to understand Theign's arc or why everyone hates him now. Once again, I just don't think Pynchon does a good job with this. But, well, if you hate him as you're supposed to, we have...good?...news here, as he dies extremely unpleasantly. Is this torture porn? Rusted pulleys and driveshafts with broken leather belts drooping from them ran everywhere overhead. The floor was stained black from campfires...

Take that however you want. Whatevz. After having failed to murder Scarsdale Vibe, Reef is in Nice, up to his usual tricks, though "what he really needed was to go out and blow something up" (849). He meets his old anarchist pal Flaco, who had been in Mexico, but now is back. It seems he met Frank in the States. Do we see that? I don't think so, but it's easy to forget, with so dang much going on. Anyway, they're sitting and chatting and thinking, boy, it sure would be bad if a bomb went off in this here cafe, when wouldn't you know it? They survive, but are badly rattled, as one would expect. Reef has a dream, or vision, where Kit tells him it's all right, to which his psyche responds, "What the fuck are you talking about? I did everything wrong. I ran away from my baby son and the woman I loved" (852). Well, he'll get over it. Sort of. Flaco suggests that going after people like Vibe may be a waste of time. "But that don't mean Vib...

...and suddenly, bam, I'm in love again. Seriously, after a few that I sort of slogged through, I thought this chapter was just durned great. Picaresque, atmospheric, good character development--yeah! As you remember, Cyprian and Bevis are heading into the Balkans. They're traveling along the Croatian coastline by ship, where they meet a...girl? woman? named Jacintha Drulov. It's not clear to me quite how old she's supposed to be, but I'm going older because Bevis is putting the moves on her and I don't want it to be creepy. He explains--this is a fairly amusing riff--how he has a lot of experience in the field of "Advanced Idiotics," a field that exists because "one cannot overestimate the value of appearing to dwell in a state of idiocy." It was crazy. "Even the food  was idiotic" (823). He gets the ship's band to play a jaunty little number called "The Idiotic." Good times. They reach the town of Kotor in Montenegro...

This begins with the news that Austria is planning to annex Bosnia, which happened in October of 1908. Working in this foreign office, Cyprian learns about this. Theign wants him to go there to potentially pull people out. He plans to go with ol' Moistleigh. Meanwhile, Yashmeen is having problems of her own, the biggest one at the start being that her landlady has the idea that she's Jewish and that anti-Semitism is way cool, so she pretends not to recognize her and makes her leave. That's bad! She's just baffled, but Cyprian takes it seriously, as well one ought to. Everyone hates Theign now, for some reason. See, this is why I feel at sea. I don't know why, or what's happening or GOOD GOD. But anyway. We don't like Theign! Keep it in mind. We also learn about this Croatian guy, Vlado Clissan, who will be...relevant. Cyprian leaves on this mission, and Yashmeen to see him off, and "it was difficult to tell what Yashmeen was thinking as she offered her ...