ATD/Bilocations – confusing dimensions and powers

To resume the reading-in-progress assessment of Thomas Pynchon's new novel "Against The Day" begun herein earlier (see pt.1 here and pt.2 here), this is now the sum-up of that work's third part, "Bilocations". No new introductory remarks are called for, I assume, as the main guiding aspects and auspices of literary concern to be levelled at this piece of writing in particular, remain the same as before. Note that this section title's indication of the very tempting ability to be at two different places at the same time, has to be read as a continuation of that previous major conceit of "doubling", which has been applied on a plethora of existential levels in "Iceland Spar".

So, here goes: (spoiler!)

Just like at every junction before, we start off by witnessing the Chums of Chance first, this time as (map in hand) they search for the lost city of Shambala as is their mission, travelling under-sand through the deserts of Inner Asia. They are however prematurely dislodged by their host craft, the Saksaul, after some "disturbances", yet just in time so as not to share its tragic fate of getting in the way of the many opposing World Powers' combating forces, vying for strategic dominance in this region.

Merle Rideout arrives at Candlebrow where he teams up with Roswell and joins in the development of some workable time-traveling device, something to do with the nature of light relative to time.

Frank meets his mother Mayva in Cripple Creek to see for himself how she's coping with living on her own and gets in effect exempted by her from being bound to finishing the last of that family business, though for all the latently obvious bitterness at play here, Frank appears to be quite incapable of accepting the blessings of worldly redemption and to let go of his self-pernicious course - staying, it seems, in the family line and, consequentially, firmly in the business. He stumbles off back south again...

Deuce and Lake live out their intentionally blind-folded conspiration, that high (or low) drama of absolution sought after and retribution unpaid, called a marriage, where in jointly developing their intertwined pasts into an irresolvable destiny, the very task of facing each other, literally, has become the ultimate penitence - with forgiveness being persistently held at arm's length.

Yashmeen Halfcourt, herself a mathematician, leaves Cambridge (Renfrew!) for Göttingen (Werfner!) to scrupulously pursue her study of the still unsolved Riemann Zeta conjecture there, leaving Lew Basnight and Neville and Nigel behind, as well as the Grand Cohen, the TWIT and White Hall, who are all keeping an eye on her, for different but incidentally converging interests of their own.

Dally Rideout with her "family" and Kit (Christopher) Traverse find themselves traveling on board the same ship over to Europe. Despite their all but romantic encounter they are fatefully made to part ways midocean as the Stupendica all of a sudden splits up and changes course, which miraculous transmutation finds Kit on board its parallel identity, battleship "Emperor Maximilian", and taken into duty there, while Dally continues on her route to end her voyage at Trieste. Kit for his part debarks at Agadir, hires on to a German trailer and tries to labour his way up north toward his original destination. Arriving in Ostend he joins in with a group of young Anarchists, the European, the somewhat more decadent brand of that same persuasion known from the kind of American travails his family history tells such a compelling tale of. There in Belgium he gets involved in all kinds of impossibly flamboyant schemes and their respective agents, ranging from such unlikely schools as mathematics, Absinthe or mayonnaise, all of them conspiring or unintentionally collaborating in one or more ways to turn into adventures, so fantastic indeed, as would leave even James Bond to better think twice before getting himself drawn into. Luckily and against all odds, he eventually manages to escape to (relative) safety.

Finally he leaves Ostend and its enchanting Quarternioneers' World Conference acquaintance Umeki Tsurigame, whom before parting he entrusts with care-taking of some much sought-after apparatus, accidentally come into his possession, that apparently engineers the dubious quality of doubly refracting and emitting (sic!) possible as well as impossible vectors of light and time, effectively turning it into a kind of Q-weapon of potentially world-annihilating power, something better not to fall into the wrong hands.

On tour through Italy with the Zombinis, Dally feels Venice to be her one, true home, and she decides to stay on by herself, where she meets time-stranded painter Hunter Panhallow in search of redemption, some way of restoring chaos to order or forestalling the first altogether. In the city with him and standing in as his model, she gets to know his colleague-in-arts Tancredi and the up and coming school of the Futurists he is attached to, their art and accompanying vision, which of course includes the visualization of time and passage.

Over time, Kit has finally made it to Göttingen, where he meets Yashmeen and catches a first glimpse of the unsettling possibility that the currently prevailing crisis in mathematics, with opposing factions arguing in favor of or equally passionately against the fundamentally antagonist approaches of vectorism and pure, "real" mathematics to solving the Zeta function and thereby defining the interminable on either scale, micro or macro, in actuality were nothing but a reflection of the oncoming political crisis then threateningly encroaching on Europe and the entire world, probably even strangely connected, if not altogether identical with it, being some kind of flipside thereto. Eventually he falls for Yashmeen, unanswered, as she leaves Göttingen only a short while later - not without first (but almost uncomprehendingly so) laying the foundation to what would in effect grow into the famed solution of the Riemann problem she had been so desperately in search of.

Lew Basnight back in London gets informed about a copy of the secret map to Shambala apparently being in the possession of one Lamont Replevin, some suspicious dealer of antiquities.

Next, Kit is forced to leave Göttingen and relinquish his mathematical studies there, as Scarsdale Vibe cuts off his funding and seems to be intent upon having him eliminated altogether. Thus, for an alternative, Kit takes over an assignment by the TWIT to inquire into the whereabouts of Yashmeen's father, Algernon Halfcourt, to secure and report back on his reputed record of the mysterious events at Shambala.

In Mexico, Frank together with Ewball Oust and Wolf Tone engages in weapons trafficking across the US border and in doing so unexpectedly runs into Stray at El Paso. And no word of Reef yet, who over in Europe is doing tunnelling work in the Alps, in exile from his own destiny, it seems, or trying to flee it, not easy to decide, when he is eventually haunted to avenge his father, as a visitation of sorts manifests itself into the real opportunity to have a go (or a shot rather) at Scarsdale Vibe in Venice. Running into Kit in Switzerland first, the two brothers quickly team up to turning this prospect into a joint resolution. In consequence of which plan they are once more to part ways, Kit and Yashmeen, as she for her part has to follow instructions by the T.W.I.T. ordering her back to London.

In London meanwhile, Lew Basnight has to face the sobering discovery that known to his employer, the Grand Cohen and the T.W.I.T., Renfrew and Werfner are in fact one and the “same” bilocated, split up or refracted person, working out its own inner antagonism as two agents (or in the guises of such) for opposing world powers vying for dominance over or, if that were not to be, alternatively, destruction of the strategically important Balkan, conceiving of some new monstrous weapon, a trap-pipeline of poison gas. Being unwholesomely reminded of a very similar situation not too long ago back in the US, of him being put to use in somebody else's plans, unknown, unexplained to him , beyond his grasp or maybe, even, beyond the reality of this world altogether, he decides to leave it all behind him and move on separately.

Now at this point where part three comes to its fitting conclusion I don't want to treat you to any additional lengths of analysis here, only add, if you don't mind, one or two observations of mine, hopefully worthy of being added:

In my estimation, certainly the Wild West episodes are the most accessible ones, partly due to the tableau of characters given here, who more than has to be deemed customary with Pynchon actually work as representations of real living people, fairly complete with emotional display and all, and with identifiable, credible speech patterns to go along with it, that make for readable, enjoyable dialog, so much so in fact, one feels tempted to call them “authentic voices”. Well, almost.

Nevertheless, I feel this portion to be just slightly less scrupulously written than the preceding one, less forcefully trimmed to precisely that degree of Pynchon-logic, which in essence is this very entertaining trigger-play of counter-referencing and inimitable association-leaps so typical of him as to make it his very own trademark in writing style. This may in part be owed to the fact that the eponymous metaphor of bilocation, the ability of being two or more places at a time, doesn't serve to bring anything new into the equation that is being literally performed, if not solved, in here. To me part three is very much an extension of part two - which doesn't sound too bad after all, for again you are given all the valuable enjoyment of the English language being performed on with nothing short of grandiosity.

Finally, what crossed my mind, which by nature is always looking for ways of trans-lation, is the tempting question of how a film version of all this would have to be like? Well, pretty close to Miyazaki Hayao, I would say, one of my favorites anyway, and just look at the “Chums of Charms” signet at the top of this post, now, ain't that Laputa or isn't it? Try imagine this all in real film – or try do this, how about it?

Stay tuned for more!

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