AtD question

[Michael Bailey]

So, way late in the book, and *after* Kit and Dally separated -

Thank you Mike, and everyone on the thread (Matthew for originating)

It’s actually a really cool section and I’d forgotten about it, or maybe
didn’t really read it attentively at all before.

Kit meets up in Lwów with - ah, spoiler alert



Professor Vanderjuice & they talk about the Zermelo Axiom & in fact it’s so
good I think tomorrow, I’ll start a “reference chasing thread” for those
few pages

(Takin’ a break from Flange for a minute)







On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 12:23 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I went back and reread Part Four and Part Five. It turns out that some
> sort of “teletransportation” did happen to Kit, although not from the Far
> East back to Paris, but from Lwów, Poland. He somehow ended up in the hotel
> room of Lord Overlunch, a stamp collector, who told him he was on a
> Shambhala postage stamp. This happened in Part Five (p1080-1081), after Kit
> and Dally separated, and hinted at some kind of reunion.
>
> Before that, after leaving Fleetwood without saying goodbye, Kit somehow
> trekked to Constantinople:
>
> “Kit as a matter of fact was already on the run. He had been living in
> Constantinople, tending bar at the Hôtel des Deux Continents, off the
> Grande Rue over on the European or honkytonk side of the Golden Horn in
> Pera, long enough almost to’ve come to believe his life had found its
> equilibrium at last. Folks out here talked about fate, but for Kit it was a
> matter of stillness.
>
> It had taken him a while, from Kazakh Upland to Kirghiz Steppe to Caspian
> Depression, short hops in little steamers along the Anatolian coast, the
> invisible City ahead of him gripping him ever more surely in its field, as
> he felt the weight of reverence, of history, the nervous bright edge of
> revolution, around the final cape and into the Bosphorus, the palaces and
> small harbors and mosques and ship traffic, beneath the Galata Tower,
> docking at last at Eminönü.”
>
> Until he helped an enemy of the C.U.P. and had to leave for Buda-Pesth in
> a hurry. (p911-912)
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 5:05 AM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Let’s see, I never did connect Kit’s travels very well:
>>
>>
>> Kit and Yashmeen scarper from Göttingen together on an ostensible mission
>> to the Far East for the T.W.I.T.S…
>>
>> Meet up with Reef in a sanatorium in Switzerland
>>
>> Kit takes off with Reef to try to kill Vibe in Italy
>>
>> Yashmeen is called back to London
>>
>> Kit & Reef fail to kill Vibe; Kit continues on eastward to Trieste,
>> carrying a letter from Yashmeen to her
>> father (who’s in the East)
>>
>> On to Bucharest, Baku, then there’s some riding on the Trans-Caspian
>> railway … to Kashgar (as of 2023
>> it’s in western China)
>>
>> Yashmeen’s father, Auberon Halfcourt, is living a diplomat/spy’s life &
>> facing off frequently with his Russian counterpart, Colonel Prokladka
>>
>> Halfcourt sends Kit to Siberia in the company of Lieutenant Prance…He’s
>> overawed by Lake Baikal…
>>
>> To Irkutsk, where they get a bunch of counterfeit coins from a British
>> agent named Poundstock, to take & circulate in the Tunguska region
>>
>> After the Tunguska event they go to Tuva & hear the throat-singers…they
>> sort of discern that the T.W.I.T.S no longer care what they do…they
>> separate
>>
>> Prance meets & flies off with the Chums
>>
>> Kit takes up with a band of woodchoppers
>>
>> Sees Fleetwood Vibe, catches up with family news, then they spend an
>> uneasy
>> night dreaming of killing each other
>>
>> After which - “[Fleetwood] looked over, through the wind-beaten confusion,
>> at where Kit’s bedroll should have been. But Kit had left sometime in the
>> night, as if taken by the wind.”
>>
>>
>> Next time we see Kit, he’s on a Wagons-Lits train east of Budapest,
>> heading
>> for Paris - & at a brief stop in Szeged, sees Dally on the Orient Express
>> going the other way, about to be abducted…
>>
>> He saves her from her would-be captors and they become lovers.
>>
>>
>> So yes, there’s a gap. Whether it’s teleportation that brings Kit back
>> from
>> Asia into Europe and onto the train, one cannot say for certain - nor that
>> it isn’t.
>>
>> It’s like he goes further & further into the parts of the world less
>> familiar (to Westerners) and then - like in Pac-Man - goes off the edge of
>> the board and comes back in on the other side.
>>
>> Or - to use the yoyo metaphor from _V._ - he does some elaborate tricking
>> in Asia, walking the dog etc, and then at just the right moment, the
>> attraction of Dally pulls him rapidly into a pericheir.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 3:37 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I haven't touched AtD for a while and may have forgotten, but I don't
>> > remember such a "teletransportation" taking place anywhere in the book.
>> As
>> > far as I can tell, Kit met Dally by chance on his way back from the Far
>> > East, and they went back to Italy together and got married. But they
>> > eventually separated and Dally went to live in Paris, while Kit
>> remained in
>> > Italy.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 4:44 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > Howdy folks,
>> > >
>> > > Maybe y'all can help me with something. I'm pretty behind on recent
>> > Pynchon
>> > > critical writing and I'm trying to find out if anything has been
>> written
>> > on
>> > > a certain subject. My problem is that I'm not finding much but I
>> suspect
>> > I
>> > > may not be getting good search results. (I've checked Orbit but came
>> > across
>> > > nothing relevant.)
>> > >
>> > > My question is: does anyone know of any articles or essays that deal
>> with
>> > > Kit's "teletransportation" from the Far East back to Paris at the end
>> of
>> > > the AtD? It strikes me that heaps has been written about Slothrop as
>> he
>> > > fades from (into?) the narrative of GR and yet little attention
>> appears
>> > to
>> > > have been given to Kit's rather perplexing instant transport through
>> > > space-time.
>> > >
>> > > ciao
>> > > mc otis
>> > > --
>> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> > >
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>