Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 4: Line 14

 "For which you have just earned five more demerits!" advised a stern voice close to his ear, as he was abruptly seized from behind and lifted clear of the lifelines.

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Oh! A stern voice handing out demerits and stopping Darby from enjoying life? Time to meet the stick-in-the-mud member of the Chums of Chance! Imagine this: three characters are introduced in the first fourteen lines of a novel and you already know who the best character is (Darby!) and who the worst character is (this demerit wielding chunder dud!)! Even if you're the total opposite of me and you're into rules and regulations and stopping people from sucking the marrow out of life, you'd still think, "Well, I now know who the worst and best characters are in this book! That little snot Darby is a chaotic little troublemaker who is bound to be the downfall of all mankind! Based on the use of the word 'more' modifying the word 'demerits,' this isn't the first time the little scoundrel has been caught putting the crew's lives in danger with his chaotic outbursts of pure joy! While this new character here is the model of decent and respectable citizenry! Good show! Can't fault somebody for a good tut!"

Earlier when the lifelines were mentioned, I just thought, "Oh, that's just more nautical terms for parts of ships I probably don't really need to understand." But now I see that there was a reason for using that term! Here, Darby is ecstatically enjoying his existence! He is embracing all that life has to offer! And then here comes this dour kid, pulling him away from that joy, "lifting him clear of the lifelines." I bet this kid's name will be Hal Monitor.

Man, I really dislike this new kid! Boo! Hiss! Suck it!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 4: Line 13

 "I can't hardly wait!" he exclaimed.

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"I can wait" means a person has the patience to remain calm until the moment something happens.

"I can hardly wait" means a person is antsy, knowing they must wait, but is discomfited by the process, only just holding back.

"I can't wait" means a person feels they must act, or the thing they are expecting must happen immediately or they will perish (in dramatic fashion! Not literally!).

Which means "I can't hardly wait" means, um, I guess the exact same thing as "I can't wait" and also "I can hardly wait." I think because "hardly wait" is just a more dramatic "wait," right? Darby can't wait nor can he hardly wait. He's so excited that he sounds exactly like the baby he is when he gets the common phrase "I can hardly wait!" incorrect. I'm sure many people say "I can't hardly wait!" but those people are probably the babies in their group of peers and just don't understand language.

I mean, I thought I understood language and then I tried to parse "I can't hardly wait" and now I'm not so sure. Have I always been the baby in my peer group?! Time for some self-reflection!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 3-4: Line 12

 (Darby, as my faithful readers will remember, was the "baby" of the crew, and served as both factotum and mascotte, singing as well the difficult treble parts whenever these adolescent aeronauts found it impossible to contain song of some kind.)

* * * * * * * * * *

What just happened here? What is this parenthetical reference doing to me?! After thinking I was just sitting here reading a book for the first 11 lines, am I now supposed to think I've been sitting cross-legged on the floor while a man in a smoking jacket sitting before a fire reads from a huge tome, interrupting himself every few paragraphs to take a few short puffs off his pipe? Okay, fine, he says "readers" and not "listeners" but I'm a terrible "reader" so sometimes I jump to stupid conclusions. Anyway you're missing the point! What the hell just happened here?!

When you pick up a book, you're asked to enter the world of the novel, to suspend the part of your brain that is constantly saying things like "If Ripley survives this fight against the mother alien, this movie is unbelievable." (I couldn't think of a book reference so you get a movie reference.) I mean, your brain made it up until that point believing a ton of crazy things! Whose fault is it when some incident (either by itself or the accumulation of previous nearly unbelievable incidents) cracks you straight out of the fantasy? Sometimes you really have to work harder than the author to make sure your disbelief remains suspended. So why would Pynchon do this to me?!

For eleven lines, I was all, "What a cool world! I totally believe these kids, in 1893, are flying around the world in a ship going on government missions and dressing like American flags! I wonder if some of them will kiss?!" And for eleven lines, I was happy! I was content! I was snuggled up warmly in the belief that this America exists! And then Pynchon is all, "Hey. By the way, these kids are characters in a book. Not the book you're reading! But a series of books [how else can a reader be "faithful" if not by coming back, book after book, in a cherished series?]." And then I was all, "Let me get this straight. Am I supposed to believe these kids are just characters in a fictional book or am I supposed to read this knowing that they're characters in a fictional book while also being characters in a real book? I don't know if I have the emotional rigor to digest and cope with this information."

Also, I'm supposed to have read the Chums of Chance's previous adventures?! I guess what Pynchon is saying is that I'm not a faithful reader because, no matter how hard I strained my suspension of disbelief, I couldn't remember that Darby was the baby.

The other thing Pynchon asks us to believe is that these kids often break out into song like they're living in a musical. Now that's something I can buy into!

Putting the word "baby" in quotes probably means Darby isn't really a baby; he's just the youngest member of the crew. But, I mean, who would have taken this narrator slash author literally if he'd left the word "baby" out of quotation marks? I'm being asked to believe a lot of stuff (and I'll soon be asked to believe in a dog who loves to read books about dogs having adventures), so why shouldn't I think I'm being asked to believe Darby is an actual baby! I mean, why not?! Remember, faithful readers, how many things I was asked to believe while reading Gravity's Rainbow?! Sometimes I feel like Pynchon is sitting on my chest slowly letting a long strand of drool dangle from his mouth directly over mine while simultaneously holding my wrist and forcing me to slap myself in the face while chanting, "Stop hitting yourself!" Also that's a compliment. I apparently love having those things done to me.

Seriously though. If this novel ends on a Muppet Babies scene where these kids are all hanging out in a playroom at their daycare imagining being on an airship while Baby Darby poops himself in the corner giggling like a moron, I totally won't be surprised. Of course not! If the book ends that way, I'm going to print up this blog entry and run around the city screaming, "I totally guessed where this Pynchon novel was going by Line 12! Who's the genius? Grunion Guy's the genius!" And then somebody will probably scowl at me and say, "Of course Grunion Guy's a genius! That's the literal definition of genius! But he probably isn't smart! Jerko!"