Re: Shadow Ticket—Pre-Code

Sun May 3 20:47:08 UTC 2026

> On 05/03/2026 9:25 AM PDT Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:
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>  
> "Some great stuff here, Robin. I didn't know that the Pynchon family's fortune was tied in with the early motion picture biz. So Thessalie's comment has a lot more depth. And you make a good case for the titular ticket to be a movie ticket, rather than the transatlantic ticket I assumed it was.
> 
It's both and more, as usual. The "Ticket" aspect still applies to the P.I. gig. The "Shadow" aspect implies "Noir". The cover is of a very shadowy theater district in downtown Budapest.

>  
> Is the thesis  talkies ushered in, or at least enabled, the rise of fascism? Just as literacy led to assassination during the Kirghiz Light episode in GR. Or is it a less direct: talkies = Depression = rising fascism? Anyway, something to think about on a re-read."
> 
I am concerned with what was happening with the historical and present-day Pynchon family at any given time in all of his novels.

Here's an example—when Pynchon and Company went down in 1931, 
it was E. A. Pierce, at the time the biggest brokerage on Wall Street, who picked up what was left of Pynchon and Co. E. A. Pierce was later folded into Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. I remember their TV ads, back around 1964. "Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus" scans a lot like that oft repeated company name. Pierce Inverarity had a whitewashed bust of Jay Gould, Oedipa wondered if that was how he died, crushed by the only ikon in the house. One could easily pass over that reference. Jay Gould was infamous as the most unscrupulous figure in the history of large-scaled finance. He came before the notably unscrupulous Rockefellers became one of the primary arbiters of global finance, pushing for big oil. According to Charles Hollander, the Rockefellers (Nouveau Riche) squeezed out the Morgans (Old Money) by stock market manipulations such as these. Pynchon & Co. was collateral damage—or maybe not. They were a big fish in a big pond, after all, and when they went down, everybody got soaked by the splash.

What drives me batty is the fact that I can't find a book that covers the subject of Pynchon and Company specifically, knowing that they were important on a number of levels including the development of railroads, electricity, boating, aeronautics and other forward-looking investments. From all the articles I read almost two decades ago I know there is more than enough information to assemble one awesome historical family biography out of newspaper clippings, magazine articles and Pynchon and Company publications. But for some reason, this history remains submerged. 

I'd say Pynchon Family history otherwise comes into play in CoL49, in part because we are looking at the estate of the man or corporation that bought what was left of Pynchon and company. Tax stamps are collectible, Pynchon and Company had a tax stamp scandal early on, you'd be surprised what this sort of a collectible could bring to an auction, and so on. Of course, this is all metaphor. Pierce Inverarity is not E. A. Pierce and Company but I posit that Pierce Inverarity is a stand-in for E A. Pierce and Company.

This connection to family history goes deeper; American "waste" laws differ from UK waste laws. The law that defines the difference is Pynchon v Stearns:

Question - Pynchon vs. Stearns 1846 https://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/2007-December/103663.html

One could say, as an historical event, the fall of Pynchon and Company was tied to the rise of fascism, but that argument would make sense to me mainly due to the rise of the Rockefellers and everything that went with creating world-wide dependency on oil and the aftereffects of the rise of those interests in global politics. Not so much due to P & C falling apart as what developed in its wake.

> You read the book six times! I struggled to get through it once, but now it might be interesting to read it again, with your perspective in mind.
> 
I know we were all expecting some grand finale. And because I initially found the book so flat, at least on my first four times around, that it took real effort to read it. The fourth time around I had the novel on the nightstand and would absorb it before going to sleep, around four pages at a time. Once that happened, I skimmed though the book looking for references to cinema, remembering that Pynchon and Co. went down in part because so much debt was tied up in Fox Films. Like Thessalie Wayward sez . . . 

Then I gave it one more shot, gazing at all the contents as if they are being presented as a Pre-Code movie, seeing as the contents all seem to belong in a Pre-Code movie and how the references to Pre-Code movies, stars, songs in movies are all pointed and specific, focusing on the exemplars of Pre-Code cinema. I'd go so far as to suggest that Pynchon conceived Shadow Ticket as a movie, explaining the quality of the dialog and how the dialog is typographically laid out, the length and surface complexity of the novel, its, as I wrote before, mise-en-scène.

I'm a sucker for Pynchon's witchy fortune tellers, all really cute/hot ladies, all of them always right. Thessalie Wayward is no exception. 

"Thessalie, if you ain't just the spit of that Joan Blondell."

"Widely remarked on, and don't change the subject."

Note that Thessalie is a region in the north of Greece, notable for its ancient history and mythical status. I know the general region of north Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria as magical places. Remember how Bulgaria is presented in Against the Day? In any case, here is probably Joan Blondell's one scene that best demonstrates what an icon of the Pre-Code era Ms. Blondell was/is and what images were on Hicks' mind, no doubt:

https://youtu.be/R9Ey-H02KOU?si=ceTLJpkQqiQz-CLs

> What was the whole motorcycle sequence about? In old movies, motorcycles were often a comical element, no? Thinking of Duck Soup, maybe.
> 
Don't know, haven't sussed everything out save that the motorcycle sequence does make for a fine motorized chase, just the thing to end a movie. You can ask PTA. 

> A couple of nights ago I rewatched Hail, Caesar! (2016) and couldn't help but think of Shadow Ticket when the actor played by Channing Tatum defects to the Soviet Union via submarine. 
> 
Good Point!

>  
> The film is marred, in my opinion, by poor editing (script and footage), but it has some comic elements, such as the Marxist kidnappers and the overtly queer-coded dance number, that seem as if they could have come from a Pynchon novel.
> 
The editing scene surely belongs.

https://youtu.be/Rxix0rZuuY0?si=sv4vWqaSiEQsuZmb

>  
> Pynchon hasn't specifically written about filmmaking in the Hays Code era, has he?
> 
Have you heard of a little pamphlet called Gravity's Rainbow?

> In a way, it's a more fascinating time, especially the 1950s. Not so much the blacklisting, which he covers in Vineland, but the work-arounds directors had to create to indicate that sex had happened.
> 
I guess "it's too soon to know". For me the Pre-Code era is more interesting because of what they did leave in, how much they did "show", how much they were taunting would-be censors. One of those anarchist interregnums that Pynchon seems to love.

>  
> On a side rant, I think the Coen brothers would have been much better suited than PTA as Pynchon's official adaptors.
> 
I'd love to see the Michelangelo Antonioni version of CoL 49, but that ship has sailed. 

I like Inherent Vice, the movie. It's got enough confusion to require at least three viewings. Martin Short as Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd was perfect. Haven't seen OBAA yet, kinda dreading it as so much of what I love about Vineland are the period specifics.

In any case, my sense now is that Shadow Ticket is the necessary prequel to Gravity's Rainbow and very much in that spirit. The research is there, the relation is clear. There's an awful lot about movies in GR and it's clear that I need to re-read it in light of Shadow Ticket. 

Like the young girl sez, "There must be a pony in here somewhere!" 

>  
> Laura
> 