People who want to know how far into the book that controversial excepted passage of a couple of months ago can get a probable answer from letter U in Pynchonwiki Are the "Chums of Chance" a fair approximation of that western-pulp- writer-protagonist predicted a few months back? http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon- l&month=0608&msg=104179&keywords=pulp%20fiction%20writer