AtDDtA1: In Some Boys' Book of Adventures

[Dave Monroe]

"... as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in
some boys' book of adventures ... as if that page of their chronicles
lay turned and done, and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by
some potent though invisible Commnadant of Earthy Days, toward whom
Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again ..." (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 2,
p. 17)


"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some
boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay
turned and done"

The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be
written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just
words on a page...as is this book, ATD?...Again a Pynchonian theme: no
book is the reality.

"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though
invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable
obedience, had turned again."

Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like
for Darby, or is it also self-referential to all the adventures of the
Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible
presence from whom the chums get their orders? Cf. earthly surface,
p.9

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_17


"some boys' book of adventures"

"John Kennedy's role model James Bond was about to make his name by
kicking third-world people around, another extension of the boy's
adventure tales a lot of us grew up reading." (SL, "Intro," p. 11)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0211&msg=72588

"Grover had been reading Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera by Victor
Appleton. He kept coming across these Tom Swift books by apparent
accident, though he had developed the theory lately that it was by
design, that the books were coming across him, and that his parents
and/or the school were deeply involved....

[...]

Every time one of them popped up, as if from an invisible, malevolent
toaster, he'd devour it. It was an addiction; he was haunted by Aerial
Warships, Electric Rifles...." (SL, "TSI," pp. 120-1)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0303&msg=76435

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114413

And do see as well (scroll down a bit therein) ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114264