Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 5: Line 41

 They entered rather the realm of folklore, superstition, or perhaps, if one does not mind stretching the definition, the religious.

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If only Pynchon would use a semi-colon at times like these, it would make doing this project easier! By using a pronoun referring to the subject in the previous line, he's connected these sentences in a manner that should have forced me to discuss them together. So instead of chastising myself by saying, "You stupid fool! You've already read this bit once and you knew Pynchon continued the thought about the falling poo in the next sentence but you were too fucking proud to just add both sentences to the same post, weren't you?! Maybe don't see rules as hard and fast commandments from your God-self, you delusional prick, and possibly do what's best for trying to explicate the text! Mother was right. You're a failure. Pathetic."

"They," of course, refer to the incidents of heavenly shit falling amidst the Earth-bound Preterite. They know not why these things fall. Perhaps great birds fly too high to be seen (folklore), or maybe they fall upon people who looked lustfully on somebody too young (superstition), or perhaps they fall upon people who looked lustfully on somebody too young (religious).

Actually, the religious bit goes far deeper than my previous and totally serious statement might indicate. Human shit falling from the sky may as well be a religious experience in that it's as mystical as transubstantiation. What exists in the sky that can suddenly become human shit, and why would God transmute it? Are these heavenly shits the shits of the dead somehow passing from one realm to the next, desperate messages from beyond the veil?

Also, why would one be "stretching the definition" of religious in this context? Is it because it would seem mean and vulgar to lift human shit to the Divine, even if it is human shit mysteriously falling from the heavens? Perhaps Pynchon's definition stretching of religious is subtle condemnation on the entire ministry, comparing holy miracles to human and dog shit falling from the sky (an act that we see, in the previous sentence, has an all-too-scientific explanation).