Game rules, Cards *contains spoiler*

[Mark Kohut]

gotta think and think,,great obs....

at least the themes of chance vs. predetermination come into play.....


----- Original Message ----
From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
To: pynchon list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, December 3, 2007 4:42:24 PM
Subject: Game rules, Cards *contains spoiler*

At 700 pages in I'm beginning to think the book might be a single card
game, and not several, and I'm suspecting that it's Solitaire, though
I don't play the game myself, so I'm out on a limb. But reasons to
suspect this include:

–the zero function (getting to zero cards left to play)
–the arrangement of cards in suits, four dimensions, according to
color (the Venice-painters-color separation chapter p 587)
–The Traverse's strike me as all Jacks, or Aces?
–Miles knew where the card was p. 24
–house of cards 220
–Japanese "Four Death" 258
–"not in any card game he knew how to play" 272
–"longest-runnin poker game in history" 280
–538 card counting and card values
–566 wild cards
–Dally's card tricks 574
–Deuce…
–Light and Dark, being possibly cards turned face up or down
–card references all over pages 538, 680 - 686
–Yashmeen nearly out of cards, 589

and there are many more.…

The possibility being that Thomas Pynchon might have written out his
characters, given them plot lines, and then played a game of cards,
inventing the connections as required. As if to unwrite the writing of
the book, to realize the "thrown-ness" of being by bringing his
characters to life as he turns cards over and places them with
others....

http://www.emanating.com/wordpress/?page_id=42

Cf. ...

Hawthorne Abendsen, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (1962)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle

http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679740674


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