Against the Day – Part 4

At around 367 pages, Part 4 of Against the Day is the novel’s longest section. This part, which is the length of many novels, shares its title with the novel itself. The title is taken from 2 Peter 3:7 in the Bible. In the King James Version, that verse reads “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Even though this is the longest section, I found it easier to follow the novel’s many plot threads. Some of this is because I’ve now spent enough time with the characters that they’re familiar and some of this is because Pynchon is now bringing his novel to a conclusion. In Part 2, we heard a lot about Kit Traverse’s fascination with mathematics and vectors. Now, in part 4, our characters who are scattered around the world all begin to find their way onto a vector that will carry them through World War I, effectively the novel’s day of judgement, and convergence in Southern California at the beginning of the 1920s.

The 1908 Tunguska Event, a real-life 12-megaton explosion that happened in Siberia, possibly from a comet hitting the Earth proves to be a major event in the lives of many of the characters ranging from Kit Traverse to the Chums of Chance and their Russian counterparts, the crew of the Bolsha’ia Igra. Pynchon notes that the Tunguska Event was so powerful it sent some reindeer flying and even caused some of their noses to glow red. More seriously, it proves to be a transformative event that heralds the coming world war.

Much of part 4 follows Yashmeen Halfcourt, Reef Traverse, and Cyprian Latewood as they form a three-way romance. Over the course of that romance, Yashmeen becomes pregnant. In part because of that, stopping the oncoming war in Europe becomes a priority for her. Reef’s family has fought for unions and in this section, he uses his skills to attempt to prevent the war. Unfortunately, the oncoming storm is too powerful and their efforts are doomed to failure.

Meanwhile, Reef and Kit’s brother Frank is in Mexico caught among the tides of revolution ahead of World War I. He becomes a freedom fighter and is nearly killed before tending to the machinery on a coffee plantation. Eventually he escapes Mexico and finds his way back home to Colorado where he witnesses the death of Scarsdale Vibe, the man who was ultimately responsible for his father’s death.

We spend World War I itself with the Chums of Chance aboard their airship, the Inconvenience. Initially, they’re sent to find the Bolsha’ia Igra, which has vanished. When they find the Russian airship, they discover the crew are helping people weather the storm of war. The Chums abandon their mission and help the Russians on their mission of mercy, delivering food to people in need and carrying wounded soldiers to safety. After the war, they receive a job offer in California. While the offer itself proves to be a sham, they encounter Merle Rideout, the photographer and inventor from the beginning of the book who has found his way to Hollywood. Rideout has not only learned about motion pictures, but he’s learned that he can extrapolate information from photographs to find out what happened before and after those pictures were taken. The one catch is that he doesn’t always see what happens in our timeline. Sometimes he sees different possible futures.

We close out part 4 as Merle catches up with his daughter Dally using an old photograph. What we don’t know yet is whether this is Dally as she is, or whether this is Dally as she might be. It’s like the Iceland Spar and Bilocation of earlier sections. People have choices and different choices make different realities.

I’ll have one last post after I finish part 5 to discuss final thoughts about this expansive novel along with my takeaways.

Against the Day – Part 3

As Part 3 of Against the Day opens, we find the Chums of Chance aboard subdesertine frigate Saksaul under the command of Captain Toadflax. They’re searching for the lost city of Shambhala. The Chums learn that Iceland spar allows them to use the Sfiuncino Itinerary as a map. They can go inside the map where the distances are marked in the dimension of time. Along the way, they stop at the city of Nuevo Rialto, where they encounter sand fleas the size of camels. The chums also learn that the lost city of Shambhala may not be the main objective of the Saksaul. It’s possible, they’re after oil instead of adventure.

We then return to Colorado briefly where Merle Rideout misses his daughter Dally. He begins a journey to places east and develops a fascination for movies. In particular, he’s caught up in how they manipulate time through the use of light. Meanwhile Frank Traverse has returned to the United States and is looking for his girlfriend Estrella in Nochechita. When he gets there, he has the feeling she’s in town, but somehow can’t see her. The reason Frank had left the United States is that he killed Sloat Fresno to avenge his father. Sloat’s partner, Deuce, who has married Frank’s sister Lake, is afraid of meeting the ghost of Webb Traverse. This fear forces him to admit his part in Webb’s murder to his wife.

We jump from Colorado to London and return to the adventures of the True Worshipers of the Ineffable Tetractys – the TWIT – along with Yashmeen Halfcourt and Lew Basignight. Yashmeen has been obsessed with Riemann’s Zeta Function decides to go to Göttingen. Her professor Renfrew wants her to be on the lookout for a professor called Werfner.

From here we join the steamship Stupendica where Dally Rideout is crossing the Atlantic with her mother Erlys Zombini. Kit Traverse is also there. When he and Dally meet, they remember their time in Colorado and they begin flirting with each other. Their romance is doomed as a result of the bilocation of this section’s title. The Stupendica is also the Battleship Emperor Maximillian with its own destiny. Kit finds himself working below decks on the Emperor Maximillian. After several adventures, he finds his way to Belgium. As Kit tries to figure out how he’s going to get to Göttingen, he is pegged as a nihilist outlaw. He begins to see that Belgium is a pawn of international affairs just as his home state of Colorado is.

The Chums of Chance are now in Brussels where handyman Miles Blundell encounters one of the Trespassers, who are voyagers through time. It’s pointed out that any study of time is ultimately a study of mortality. The Trespassers don’t voyage through time because of any technical knowhow. Rather they became time travelers when time was ripped open. The Chums hope the Trespassers might be able to help them find eternal youth, but Miles points out that the Trespassers don’t have that power.

Meanwhile, Kit Traverse falls in with a group of arms dealers while also falling in love with a woman named Umeki Tsurigane from Japan. The arms dealers realize the Chums’ airship, the Inconvenience is rarely seen. Only the Chums are seen and it seems to be a property of light. Umeki is working on using light as a weapon, splitting it into rays that are ordinary and extraordinary. Kit dreams about the weapon’s power, then tells Umeki about it. Ultimately, she leaves him to go to Japan.

Dally, aboard the Stupendica, arrived in Europe as expected and she travels with the Zombini family of performers across Europe. Eventually, she decides she must make her own way and asks to stay in Venice. Dally becomes associated with Hunter Penfallow, who we last saw associated with the Vormance Expedition in the last part. He tells her a story from the Gospel of Thomas that leads her to realize that one might find order when one expected chaos.

Back in London, private investigator Lew Basnight is put on the trail of an antique dealer named Lamont Replevin who supposedly has a map of the lost city of Shambhala. Lew is able to photograph it. Now, Kit Traverse and Yashmeen Halfcourt have converged in Göttingen. Kit’s funds from the millionaire Scarsdale Vibe are cut off, but Kit also realizes that Yashmeen has an incredible power. She can step outside of time itself. Yashmeen offers to help Kit find employment with TWIT. She also reveals that her father might be another person seeking the lost city of Shambhala. Kit meets with Yashmeen’s father and learns: “As for what lies beneath those sands, you’ve got your choice – either Shambhala, as close to the Heavenly City as Earth has known, or Baku and Johannesburg all over again, unexplored reserves of gold, oil, Plutonian wealth, and the prospect of creating yet another subhuman class of workers to extract it.”

In the United States, we follow Frank Traverse as he’s hired to run arms into Mexico. Frank begins to have dreams about his father Webb. At the same time, Frank’s brother Reef has been working as a dynamiter in Europe. He now knows that the millionaire Scarsdale Vibe is connected to his father’s murder and Reef feels compelled to hunt down Vibe. Reef ends up connecting with his brother Kit along with Yashmeen. Kit wants to go to Venice on Scarsdale Vibe’s trail. Kit and Reef attend a séance where the “speak” with their father, Webb, who tries to dissuade them from chasing down Scarsdale Vibe.

This part of the novel wraps up with Lew Basnight in London. He thinks he runs into Professor Renfrew, but it turns out it’s Professor Werfner. After consulting with his friends Nigel and Neville, Lew realizes Renfrew and Werfner are the same person, somehow separated through bilocation.

Keeping track of all these plot threads is definitely a challenge, but it helps to focus on the thematic threads. The Traverse brothers are seeking justice for their father, but justice may find itself tied to international politics. There’s the quest for Shambhala, which might be a quest through time as much as through space. There’s also the very notion of “bilocation.” People and places that may be two things at once, each with different fates. As Dally discovered in Venice, the world appears to be in chaos, but we may find order yet. In part 4, we’ll literally turn “Against the Day.”

As I’ve noted before, I see echoes of Pynchon’s steampunk experiment in my own writing. I see the exploration of the Wild West. I see the worldwide saga and I appreciate Pynchon’s fascination with math and science. To learn more about my steampunk saga, visit: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

Against the Day – Part 2

Today finds me at El Paso Comic Con. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll drop into the convention center and visit me at Booth A15. Also today, I continue my look at Thomas Pynchon’s steampunk novel Against the Day. Part 2: Iceland Spar is nearly three times as long as Part 1 with an elaborate plot ranging the American continent and even the world. Since I want to tackle this part of the novel in one post, I’ll do my best to limit my summary to the highlights. Part 1 opened in 1893. Part 2 moves ahead to 1899 and opens up with the young airship adventurers, the Chums of Chance. The Chums have been sent to find the Voromance Expedition which has found a meteorite harboring a consciousness and a purpose. I found myself reminded of Legion from my Clockwork Legion novels. What’s more we meet an airship crewed by Russians, who are rivals of the Chums. We ultimately learn that the Voromance Expedition is being funded by the industrialist Scarsdale Vibe.

We then join Kit Traverse at Yale. Kit is the son of Webb Traverse, the anarchist and miner from Colorado in part 1. It turns out that Kit’s education is being funded by Scarsdale Vibe and that the industrialist sees Traverse as a better potential heir than his own children.

Jumping forward to 1900, we find private investigator Lew Basnight in Denver on the trail of a dynamiter called the Kieselghur Kid. During his quest, Basnight accidently ingests cyclomite dynamite, which proves to be a hallucinogen. Basnight become addicted and eventually teams up with a pair of Englishmen who take him back to the United Kingdom where he’ll get involved with a group called the True Worshipers of the Ineffable Tetractys, or TWIT. The Tetractys is a numerical pattern with spiritual significance and they want Basnight to join as a sort of psychic detective, believing he’s gained special sight from his ingestion of cyclomite.

Meanwhile, we return to the Chums of Chance, who are now in Venice looking for a map called the Sfinciuno Itinerary which dates from just after the time of Marco Polo. As they continue their quest, they find the Itinerary may not be a literal map but a guide to a spiritual quest. One of the keys is the Iceland Spar, which proves to be a lens made from calcite which has many strange properties explored by characters through this section of the novel. In particular, calcite has the property of “double refraction” as shown in the photo I took of a calcite crystal from my home state of New Mexico at the Smithsonian Institution earlier this month.

From here we move ahead to the period from 1903-4, about a decade after the novel’s start. We have an extended sequence out in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado following the family of the anarchist Webb Traverse and people connected to him. We learn about hired guns who kill Webb. Those same men end up getting involved with Webb’s estranged daughter, Lake. Meanwhile, Webb’s sons Frank and Reef vow to avenge their father. All through this section, there are hints that Webb or his son Frank may be none other than the famed Kieselghur Kid.

In the course of their quest, Frank Traverse meets Merle Rideout, the photographer from Part 1, who is now working as a chemist in the mines. Merle points out that Iceland Spar is useful to people engaged in alchemy. While they’re meeting, Frank finds out people are gunning for him. Merle’s daughter Dahlia helps him get away, then decides to make her fortune in New York. She ultimately becomes an actress for a sleezy vaudeville company run by Scarsdale Vibe’s brother and finds her mother Erlys who had run off with the magician Luca Zomboni. He uses Iceland Spar to help create optical illusions, but it also has the danger of creating duplicate people.

Also in New York, Frank and Reef’s brother Kit meets with Nikola Tesla and Dr. Vanderjuice. Kit begins to realize that Scarsdale Vibe may have been responsible for hiring his father’s killers. Kit looks for a way to get out from under Vibe’s thumb and asks to go to Germany to continue his study in mathematics. Vibe, who seems a bit relieved not to have Kit nearby agrees to pay for his journey.

At this point we return west and follow Reef Traverse, who has become fascinated with dynamite and finds himself associated with the Kieselghur Kid. After someone tries to kill him with an avalanche, he heads east and finds himself in New Orleans. Once again, I find a fun parallel with my Clockwork Legion series. We leave Reef traveling to Genoa, Italy with a group of anarchists.

It’s now 1904 and we return once again to Colorado to follow the adventures of Reef’s brother Frank who is on the run from the people trying to kill him. Frank flees to Mexico and finds himself arrested on political crimes. He’s eventually able to break out of prison and meets up with three Tarahumare people who lead him on a spiritual quest worthy of Carlos Castaneda. During this episode, he learns that Iceland Spar has the property of duplicating places. Frank goes off on his own again and catches up with Sloat Fresno, one of the men who killed his father. Frank succeeds in killing him, but the other killer is nowhere to be found.

Finally, while the Chums of Chance are taking a vacation in New York, they learn about a professor who has built a time machine. Following up on that, two of the boys take a trip to a frightening apocalyptic future and then seek more information about time travel. They find themselves at a conference of professors interested in time travel in the Midwest. After this adventure, the chums are sent to Asia to continue their search for the Sfinciuno Itinerary. Along the way, they discover a device that can allow them to travel through sand the way a ship travels through water, which was funded by Scarsdale Vibe.

Whew! All that and I’m not even halfway through the novel! Since I’m writing these posts as I read, it’s distinctly possible that I’m not covering things that will prove to be important and giving too much emphasis to minor plot points. Still, it continues to be an interesting, if challenging read. In part 2, we see more women taking an active role. I love the way Pynchon weaves together all these disparate plot elements and it’s fascinating to see how he sets a lot of the novel in locations I would later visit in the Clockwork Legion series. You can learn more about my series at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

Against the Day – Part 1

This weekend finds me at Tell-Tale Steampunk in Baltimore, Maryland. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll make time to drop by and say hello! You can get event information at: https://telltalesteampunk.com. In honor of being at Tell-Tale Steampunk, today’s post is about a steampunk novel I recently discovered.

I was first introduced to Thomas Pynchon’s writing during my junior year at New Mexico Tech. I took a course in the philosophy of science and we read Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow. It’s a dense novel and Pynchon is less interested in exploring traditional plots and character arcs than exploring themes through a series of set pieces. While there is a narrative arc, it’s not tied to a structure. Pynchon likes to play with language and his characters even break out in song from time to time. My philosophy professor gave me an “A” on my final paper about Gravity’s Rainbow and seemed genuinely impressed by how well I’d unpacked the novel. Because of the experience, I’ve long had something of a soft spot for Pynchon’s writing. I would go on to read his novels The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland and Mason & Dixon.

Recently, while getting ready for Wild Wild West Con, I learned that Thomas Pynchon had published a novel in 2006 called Against the Day, which many people consider steampunk. That was during the time when my children were young and I was busy being a stay-at-home dad, so I didn’t hear about the novel’s release at the time. Weighing in at almost 1100 pages, Against the Day is also Pynchon’s longest novel. Given my interest in both Pynchon and steampunk, I decided I needed to give the novel a read. Given the novel’s length and the way Pynchon’s narrative tends to wander, I thought it might be worth discussing the novel one section at a time. Against the Day is broken into five parts, so today I’m taking a look at Part 1: The Light Over the Ranges.

The novel opens as a team of boy adventurers called the Chums of Chance arrive at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 aboard their airship the Inconvenience. The Chums tend to be the thread tying the events of part one together. The Chums are ship commander Randolph St. Cosmo, second-in-command Lindsay Noseworth, handyman apprentice Miles Blundell, young Darby Suckling, and Chick Counterfly, who the Chums rescued from an encounter with the Ku Klux Klan. Rounding out their crew is the highly intelligent dog, Pugnax.

Through the Chums, we meet their mentor, Professor Heino Vanderjuice and the financier Scarsdale Vibe. Our businessman is concerned about Nikola Tesla’s plans to bring free electricity to all. He would like Professor Vanderjuice to find a way to counter Tesla’s work in Colorado Springs.

A private detective Nate Privett assigns his employee Lew Basnight to the Inconvenience to look for anarchists who may be trying to infiltrate the Columbian Exposition. Basnight also relays his misadventures escorting Franz Ferdinand around Chicago. The Chums of Chance also have an encounter with a photographer named Merle Rideout and his daughter Dahlia. We learn that Rideout’s wife ran off with a magician. The story follows Rideout to Colorado where he gets a job in the mines of the San Juan mountains.

The plot largely turns to Rideout’s adventures out west some six years after the fair and time with a dynamiter from the mines named Webb Traverse. Traverse is a rabble rouser and an anarchist looking to bring justice to the mines.

At the end of part one, we return to the Chums of Chance who are assigned to monitor Tesla’s experiments from the other side of the world, then must enter the hollow Earth to travel between the poles.

So far, the book has touched on familiar themes to Pynchon readers including labor rights, racial equality, and no small measure of scientific wackiness. The characters even break out in song a couple of times. It struck me in a few places how similar Pynchon’s set pieces are to events and characters in my Clockwork Legion series and other steampunk I’ve written. My novel Owl Riders opens at the World’s Fair in New Orleans. My story “The Falcon and the Goose,” scheduled to appear in the forthcoming Grease Monkeys anthology, is set on the railroad connecting the mining towns of Colorado where Merle Rideout and Webb Traverse meet. Merle and his daughter Dahlia remind me a little of Ramon and his daughter Alethea. Although younger, the adventuring spirit of the Chums reminds me a bit of the Owl Riders themselves from throughout the Clockwork Legion series and I couldn’t help but see a little of Professor Maravilla in Professor Vanderjuice. Unfortunately, Pynchon doesn’t give the women in his tale much to do so far. You can discover the Clockwork Legion series at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing where Pynchon takes me as this journey continues. Part one is just about ten percent of the way through the novel, so I’m sure there are many twists and turns to come!