"walking" or "waking"

[Morty Schiff]

                   WAKING DELIBERATELY -- WITH A STRIDE
                   
I've a fairly simple query regarding a particular word in the 
following passage from _Gravity's Rainbow_ -- it's on page 107 of the 
Viking (Penguin) edition.
       
        But now and then, players in a game will, lull or crisis, be 
        reminded how it is, after all, really play -- and be unable 
        then to continue in the same spirit... Nor need it be 
        anything sudden, spectacular -- it may come in gentle -- and 
        regardless of the score, the number of watchers, their 
        collective wish, penalties they or the Leagues may impose, 
        the player will, _waking_ deliberately, perhaps with Katje's 
        own tough, young isolate's shrug and stride, say "fuck 
        it," and quit the game, quit it cold... 
      
I've underlined the word "waking" because a while back a friend sent 
me a letter quoting the passage, and he either presciently or 
mistakenly wrote "walking" for "waking". Presciently, I would think, 
since "walking" seems so much more vivid, more apt, more patently 
correct than "waking": the near apposition with "stride", the 
qualifier "deliberately" (how do you wake deliberately?), and the 
contextual image itself -- the athlete "walking" off the playing 
field, as Pynchon beautifully puts it, regardless.... And yet every 
other edition of _GR_ I've been able to check has "waking", and as 
far as I know the question, in the twenty odd years since the novel 
appeared, has not received any published comment at all. Curious.  
Moreover two informed Pynchonites whom I was able to talk to had not 
been aware of any possible problem in the text until I brought it to 
their attention.  I also checked with Weisenburger's book, in which 
other _GR_ typos are listed, and found no reference to the matter 
either.  Then, last winter I sent a letter to Thomas Pynchon about 
the passage, but I haven't received a reply.    

In these circumstances I'm turning to interested Pynchon students -- 
Is it "waking" or "walking" ? I'm eager for your comments, and will 
try to write a piece based on replies received.

Thanks for your attention. 
Morty Schiff
Schiff at postbox.csi.cuny.edu