"walking" or "waking"

[ray gonne]

Morty Schiff wrote:
> 
>                    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...

actually, waking seems to me well-chosen over walking, though i doubt it
was an issue for pynchon. all of the connotations to walking mentioned
in your post are present in the 'shrug and stride'; waking deliberately
calls to mind a shaking of the head (yes, willfull) as if to snap out of
it, it being the game, the illusion of control. fuck it indeed. waking
seems to be the most effective metaphor for the abrupt shift pynchon is
describing, the sudden end of a means by which reality had been
suspended, however momentarily and/or periodically.
ray