BDSL, 1

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Well, first there's the title. Something wonderfully upbeat about it- a 
transformation, if only in
the imagination. Long live "Seems." Long live the conditional. Long 
live indefiniteness and
uncertainty. L'hospital's Rule (really Bernoulli's on loan...) will 
help bridge the abyss, like the
aid of an imaginary playmate, and allow passage, only to vanish once 
the crossing's been
made, later in the novel.

Farina brought out BDSL in  '65 or '66, late enough to be cognizant of 
The Weak Force's
role not so much in causing, as prolonging the decay of subatomic 
particles- stretching
it out, making it take longer than usual, mediating it,- allowing a 
change in flavor, in this
case from a down quark to an up quark, causing a neutron to become an 
electrically
charged proton, and using it as a metaphor, for Gnossos's 
transformation, and for
the process of narration itself. Pynchon would copy this in M&D.