COL49 "God" and quanta

[jbor]

    The can knew where it was going she sensed, or something fast enough,
    God or a digital machine, might have computed in advance the complex web
    of its travel; but she wasn't fast enough, and knew only that it might
    hit them at any moment, at whichever clip it was doing, one hundred
    miles an hour. (24)

Probably the most interesting verb (gerund, actually) in the novel is on p.
23, where the can of hair spray "continued its high speed caroming."

carom n. U.S. 1. n. a cannon at billiards  2. v.i. make carom; strike and
rebound off (abbr. of *carambole* fr. Sp *carambola*, a sour greenish fruit,
from Portuguese, from Marathi *karambal*)

A cannon in billiards, I believe, is the shot in which the cue ball is
caused to contact one object ball after another. The latter sense (from the
OED), the intransitive verb, is considered disreputable by traditional
grammars in that it allows the possibility of random and
independently-achieved momentum on the part of the ball/s. The point is that
as an intransitive verb does not have to take a direct object, it is the cue
ball (or the aerosol can, in Pynchon's metaphor) which is nominally the
active participant in any sentence using the verb "to carom".

I think Pynchon has deliberately chosen to make a gerund from the
intransitive verb here. The place where the can caroms (to ... ) is thus
(grammatically, physically, relativistically) indeterminate, i.e. in time
and space. The can is the subject of the sentences which describe its path,
and it is being propelled by "the great outsurge of pressure" caused by "the
stuff" inside the can "atomising". The particles, in other words.

Later on, as Oedipa ponders the ever-accumulating manifestations of the
Trystero post-horns, there's mention of "intrusions into this world from
another, a kiss of cosmic pool balls," adding yet another slant to the
debate. (86) Aye caramba!

best