AtDTDA: 18 Rooting about [515/516]

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Gradually, bits of valid intel come back to Kit, thanks to Root Tubsmith's [1] 
rooting about the Stupendica/Maximillian. Root finds out that the 
"Stupendica" [or whatever his local version of the Stupendica might be] 
holds all sorts of secret identities and compartments:

          The shelter deck proved to be concealing a magazine full of 
          torpedoes. Lighter decks topside were designed to fold upward 
          and in other intricately hinged directions, to become armor-
          plating and casemates for the smaller caliber guns. 516

. . . .as someone else mentioned, very much like the "Transformers".

While we are experiencing this turbulance on the high seas, I will be 
referencing additional online resources, in particular the Against-the-Day 
pynchonwiki and the Chumps of Choice blogs. Notably, the Chumps of Choice blog 
has a thorough discussion of the mathmatical terrors we are about to endure. 
Also, there are a number of useful word definitions on the Against-the-Day 
pynchonwiki.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_489-524#Page_515

Some cool obs. from the CoC blog:

          At Friday, May 04, 2007 4:52:00 AM, Will Divide said...
          I want to push a bit at the transformed Stupendica door, 
          not that I think it will swing open to reveal anything, but 
          rather to admire how it was made and hope the 
          knowledge will come in handy somewhere later.

          Note first on 514:37 IT HAD BEGUN to seem as if she [Dally] 
          and Kit were on separate vessels. And here I think that, maaybe, 
          they are in separate novels. Keep in mind that Kit has a bad 
          habit of disappearing (pps 349 & 513) whenever things begin to 
          click between them.

          I think the Italians have a technical term for what Pynchon pulls 
          on his readers in the Stupendica/Emperor Maximilian 
          transformation, that being scherzo, a joke, or trick. The two ships 
          were merged. How? At whose behest? (517:3) 

          Ehh... the author's?

          This is beginning to sound like a sea story (517:10) sez professional 
          Pynchon character O. I. C. Bodine (Oh, I see), and a big coal-black 
          hand, or just one made of coal, grabs Kit and sends him through fierce
           spasms of light to-where? Well, a narrative now far removed from the 
          one that still carries Dally.

          With Kit in the very Plutonian hold, the liner transforms with 
          no small inconvenience (Hmmm...) to the passengers (518:8-32). 
          The Zombini kids think it's a trick of their dad's. "Yeah, blame it 
          on the magician." he remarks. However, he IS the only character 
          who knows what is happening: "it's the old Liner-to-Battleship 
          Effect." he sez. 

          Ohhh....

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. . . .and a good point to insert a parenthetical note, refering back to a 
few words from the patriarch of the Zombini family, direct from New 
York it's Luca Zombini!!!:

          "It was an optical problem. I thought it would be completely 
          reversible. But according to Professor Vanderjuice up at Yale, 
          I forgot the element of time, it didn't happen all at once, so 
          there was this short couple of seconds where time went on, 
          irreversible processes of one kind and another, this sort of 
          gap opened up a little, and that was enough to make it 
          impossible to get back to exactly where we'd been. 355

. . . .and the only place where they can find their way back is at "The Isle 
of Mirrors in that Lagoon over in Venice", near the spot where Dally 
encounters dislocated time-traveller Hunter Penhallow. Small world,  eh?

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          At Friday, May 04, 2007 9:25:00 AM, Will Divide said...
          (I know Kit and Dally have actually met before -- might be 
          profitable to go back and review that...)

          Well, ha-ha, both meetings (pp 349 & 513) are preceded by a public 
          perfomance from la familia Zombini and end with Kit disappearing. 

          Coincidence?? Ehhh. . .

http://tinyurl.com/36qx7n

1: Pretty Dickensian, eh?