First Couple-Three Pages: 6/11 - ATDTDA (11): 296 - 326 --The Deep Read:

[mikebailey]

>
> kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
> 2. Merle brings Dally to a brothel for a "program of study,
>brief and clandestine." ??? No father any time any place

Heinlein could write a father who'd do that.

>
> 3. The current flat section contains the original sample blurb
> that was released pre-publication. Was this truly a random,
> flip-the-page-and-point selection, or is there some deeper significance to

ok, Jimmy Drop represents the leftists in the 60s,
the pinkinroller represents Pynchon, whose poetic fiction hit
the spot and cured some of their ills.

Dr Andrew T Still (mentor of Turnstone) represents TS Eliot (somewhat
mentor of young P), and the cyclone represents
modernism succumbing to postmodernism.  Also, he may represent
the other great early avowed P influence, Henry
Adams, so the cyclone would stand for the de-monetization of silver.

The fact that the osteopath went on to become a fairly conventional
doctor represents the later fiction of Pynchon, which was less
to the liking of radicals.

Osteopathy is itself a fascinating body of lore, drawing from
Swedenborgian cosmology and intimate familiarity with anatomy.
So, in addition to representing postmodernism, TS Eliot, and
Henry Adams, Dr Willis (drawing from "Willis" on "The Jeffersons"?)
Turnstone (as in "no stone unturned") and osteopathy stand as
themselves, for the many alternative thought systems and their
practitioners who are mentioned in AtD, and who roamed the
world in the wild and woolly 1890s. (and whose descendants, like
those of Webb, a-and maybe even the Chums, walk among us today)