ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[Carvill John]

Tore - among a lot of really great stuff - wrote:

>The Chums constantly flicker in and out of reality, or - perhaps more 
>precisely - slide back and forth along a scale where 'reality' constitutes 
>one pole and 'fiction' the other. It seems fitting that their first 
>touchdown in 'our' world should be at the World's Fair, which - as Monte 
>points out above - is as much a fiction as reality. Later, of course, they 
>come into contact, more or less, with the harsh reality of WW1, but this 
>can't exactly be construed as a steady progression by the Chums from 
>fiction to reality - just think of that fairytale ending to the whole 
>novel, whcih once again situates them squarely in the land of makebelieve.
>Interestingly, the Chums' "dual citizenship in the realms of the quotidian 
>and the ghostly" also applies to the readers of the Chums' adventures. 
>.....


...and what about their fellow baloonists? Penny Black or the crew of the 
Bolshoi Igra? I'm not sure, but I don't think we ever have any defite 
evidence that any of them exist outside of teh Chums' world. We see them 
interact with others, eg the waitresses in the restaurat in Venice, but that 
scene is viewes through the Chums' eyes so there's nothing there to suggest 
that the Chms' Russian counterparts exist for anyone other than the Chums.

To take a 90 degree tangent, there are two more Big Questions regarding the 
Chums:

1. How does Pynchon intend us to feel towards the Chums? Are we supposed to 
find them charming, or annoying? There has certainly been a lot of 
polarisation among readers, reviewers, and critics on this matter, some 
loving the Chums, some hating them.

2. Are the Chums the 'good guys'? Do *they* think they are on the side of 
teh angels? Clearly they do. BUt are they? Or are they dupes, agents through 
which technology is bent to malign ends? Do the Chums' actions ever have an 
unambiguously positive effect? And is their tendency to remain simewhat 
aloof - their heads in the clouds - expressing mystification over the 
Champagne shortage and the use of teh word 'trenches',  an instance of 'good 
men doing nothing'?

Cheers
JC

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