ATD vs. V.? Overcoding or metaphor?

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          David Patty:
          What do you kids make of Pynchon's return to 
          the Shaver-esque hollow earth theory in 'ATD'?

Unlike David Morris, I don't think of it as a throwaway. There is a 
Baron von Münchhausen quality to many of the CoC episodes in 
AtD. There is also an extraordinary focus on Alchemy and the 
Gaian notion of a conscious Earth. All of the focus on Iceland 
Spar, that Norse ice entity dragged into the Great, Lost City, 
and the concept of "light from hell" reinforces the Gaian point of 
view that Pynchon frequently expresses.