Like most "rookies" in the organization, Chick had found his initial difficulties to lie not so much with velocity as with altitude, and the changes in air-pressure and temperature that went along with it.
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Why is the word "rookies" in quotes in the previous line? My supposition, knowing that Pynchon is the author, is that the word must be fairly new to the time and the quotation marks suggest it's some newfangled slang. Looking up its etymology, I see it's a late 19th century word stemming from recruit and rook (I mean, obviously rook more than recruit but who am I to suggest that for certain? Susie Dent?). The interesting thing is that "rook" means to cheat or swindle. So what kind of attitude is that? Expecting the new guy to be a cheater and a swindler?! Oh wait! I get it! The "rookie" is the guy being swindled! So the new rookie recruit would be a guy who got suckered into joining the military like a big dumb dumby!
Rudyard Kipling was first credited with using it in Barrack-room Ballads from 1892. That wouldn't mean it's brand new but it's gotta be close to brand new if it first sees print in 1892. Unless he made it up, which I doubt. Also, I should now be hung from the side of the Inconvenience by Lindsay for using the word "gotta."
My Children's Lit professor at San Jose State would have emphasized the words Pynchon used in this sentence that sound like they're describing Chick: "lie," "pressure," and "altitude" which suggests "attitude" if you're terrible at reading and/or poetical by nature.
Imagine being a terrestrial kid who has lived their whole life on the ground in the 19th century. And now imagine being in this fanciful airship for the first time. You're moving faster than you've ever moved before. You're higher than you've ever been before. You're miraculously flying which, until then, you've only known angels, aliens, and ghosts to have done. And maybe birds and bugs but that's edging into too erotic a territory for me! Now you're also learning that as you go higher, your head feels weird and your ears hurt and suddenly you're cold. And you're moving faster so your stomach is queasy and you've got an exciting feeling down in your bowels (the good bowels not the gross bowels!). That's a lot to deal with!
Anyway, it's not surprising that Chick doesn't have a problem with velocity. He's a cool cat who would probably be wearing a leather jacket and riding fast motorcycles if he had been born in the 60s.
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