AtD translation: invested in, invested by

[David Morris]

It’s this kind of structure in writing that makes Pynchon really sing!

On Wed, Feb 3, 2021 at 4:39 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I needed this today, he says mysteriously and I looked up the exact quote
> of something from AtD I can't forget:
>
> page 19. with the balloon boys:
> ...."proceeding as if under a worldwide, never ending state of siege"
>
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2021 at 3:39 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> P452.6-12   The conferees had gathered here from all around the
>> world, Russian nihilists with peculiar notions about the laws of history
>> and reversible processes, Indian swamis concerned with the effect of
>> time travel on the laws of Karma, Sicilians with equal apprehensions for
>> the principle of vendetta, American tinkers like Merle with specific
>> electromechanical questions to clear up. Their spirits all one way or
>> another invested in, invested by, the siegecraft of Time and its
>> mysteries.
>> -------------------------
>>
>> Here's my take on this passage:
>> 1.  All of the conferees are "invested in, invested by, the siegecraft of
>> Time and its mysteries."
>> 2.  All are, then, at battle with Time (capital T).
>> 3.  That they are "invested by" that siegecraft implies that they are
>> less than autonomous in that battle.  "Time and all its mysteries" has
>> "captivated" them.  So, in essence, Time has agency, and the upper
>> hand against all those that siege against it.
>>
>> David Morris
>
>
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>