V-2 - Chapter Nine - Dead Center

[Robin Landseadel]

All the Big Pynchon Novels in some way have something happening dead  
center -- that is to say, at the exact mid-way point of the novel's  
page count. In the case of "V.", my edition -- the Harper Perennial  
Modern Classics edition -- there is a page count of 533, the half way  
point should be somewhere in the general vicinity of page 266.

Rather than make any comments now, I'll simply post the page as it is  
laid out in my copy.

Comments to follow.

		. . .There Weissmann, in full uniform, lunged at him from
	behind a stalagmite. "Upington!" he screamed.
		"Ah?" inquired Mondaugen, blinking.
		"You're a cool one. Professional traitors are always so cool."
	His mouth remaining open, Weissmann sniffed the air. "Oh, my.
	Don't we smell nice." His eyeglasses blazed.
		Mondaugen, still groggy and enveloped in a miasma of
	cologne, wanted only to sleep. He tried to push past the piqued
	lieutenant, who barred his path with the butt end of a sjambok.
		"Whom have you been in contact with at Upington?"
		"Upington."
		"It has to be, it's the nearest large town in the Union.
	You can't expect English operatives to give up the comforts of
	civilization. "
		"I don't know anyone in the Union."
		"Careful how you answer, Mondaugen."
		It finally came to him that Weissmann was talking about the
	sferic experiment. "It can't transmit," he yelled. "If you knew any-
	thing at all you'd see that immediately. It's for receiving only,
	stupid."
		Weissmann favored him with a smile. "You just convicted
	yourself. They send you instructions. I may not know electronics,
	but I can recognize the scrawlings of a bad cryptanalyst."
		"If you can do any better you're welcome," Mondaugen
	sighed. He told Weissmann about his whim, the "code."
		"You mean that?" abruptly almost childlike. "You'll let me
	see what you've received?"
	"You've obviously seen everything. But it'll put us that much
	closer to a solution."
		Quite soon he had Weissmann laughing shyly. "Oh. oh, I
	see. You're ingenious. Amazing. Ja. Stupid of me, you see. I do  
apologize."
		Struck by an inspiration, Mondaugen whispered, "I'm moni-
	toring their little broadcasts."
		Weissmann frowned. ''That's what I just said."

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	And the jury has determined to divide the prize
	between two writers – to Thomas Pynchon for his
	Gravity’s Rainbow.