Ash Wednesday

[Terrance]

> 
> "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return"
> 
> Picture concurrently with the above recitation a big priest's big thumb
> descending to make a cross of black ash on a young boy's forehead. Powerful
> stuff, those ancient rituals.

For Joyce, the black thumb marking  mortality on his head was the stuff
of ancient foppery he made his books from. That and Shylocks at every
door. Of cause Pynchon never had to worry about them. Nevertheless,
Shakespeare Catholicism is only critical fancy and Pynchon merely a
biographical fact.