Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 4: Line 22

 As Master-at-Arms, in charge of discipline aboard the ship, he went about his job with a humorless severity which might, to the impartial observer, easily have suggested a form of monomania.

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This seems like an appropriate time to answer some of the questions this blog has raised on Reddit because some people on the Internet seem to go about their Internetting with a "humorless severity." Almost as if it were their job to be in charge of discipline aboard the Internet! Or, if not discipline, at least in charge of enforcing some form of rules of conduct which exist in each of their individual heads. Like how people on Tumblr will often tell you how you're doing it wrong or people on Twitter will tell you not to waste your time feeding the trolls.

First off, the person who pointed Reddit to this blog, Doc Sportello, also pointed people to my Gravity's Rainbow blog with the assumption that I didn't finish. Well, just like this blog, I have not finished it. Yet! I'm still doing my second reading of Gravity's Rainbow. It takes more time because some sections of the book are quite long and some are quite abstruse. So it takes longer to figure out if there were a boner to comment on. But don't worry! I'll eventually ferret out every boner in the book!

HentaiSniper420 (a name which tells me way too much about this person!) commented:

is it really painstaking though? the author just seems to be rambling about at best tangentially related topics for most of the blog posts. compare this to something like Brian Boyd's incredibly detailed online breakdown of nabokov's "Ada" and it kind of just seems like this person is writing stream of thought reflections on the novel rather than anything substantial

For some Internet denizen who is interested in reading incredibly detailed breakdowns of things, it's strange that they didn't read the part of my blog, right there on the right-hand column, that says, "An entirely too close reading of Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day by a person without enough information or understanding of Pynchon, history, religion, or pop culture."

As for being "painstaking," I probably wouldn't have used that word to describe my blog so I'll take the criticism as criticism of Doc Sportello and not me! Whew! Now I don't feel criticized!

Boy, it seems like HentaiSniper420 might be a Lindsay Noseworth fan and they want to dangle me over the side of the Internet!

Doc Sportello then answers HentaiSniper420 with this comment:

That's true, it seems to be more of a recreational creative writing project than hardcore analysis. Still pretty cool though.

I really like the "pretty cool" part because I'm totally cool and not a nerd. But also, the hardcore analysis is in there! Somewhere. But also it will be in there even more when I get to parts that deserve more! Although, again, how hardcore can it really be if this is my first reading of the book? This is the kind of thing that needs to be done by somebody intimately familiar with the book!

Plus, I'm just starting Chapter Two in non-blog time and I'm really dreading the amount of analysis that will have to go into some of the more difficult aspects of this book. I'm just trying to keep things light until then! Let's have fun with the Chums of Chance while we're all still young and hopeful!

parisiengoat (Great name. I le approve) comments:

if you do a blog post for every 2 lines they would have to write like 100,000+ pages of blog posts to get through the book and it would take more than a lifetime. why would some even start/attempt something like this? it's mathematically insane.

Ignoring the move from second person to third person because I'm not anal about stuff like that unless I feel like I need to fill more space in a blog post, parisiengoat seems to have a humorless severity about some rule I'm breaking about life. Like, every thing I enjoy doing must have a possibility of some final completion. If parisiengoat had read the entry on Line 1, their question "Why would some [one] even start/attempt something like this?" would have been answered. I face that philosophical conundrum head-on! Also, I guess I'm mathematically insane. I never really thought about it. I do really love the Schoolhouse Rock song "Good Eleven." Did that help clarify my mathematical sanity?

oxenchunk (my favorite commenter on Reddit for reasons that will be apparent any second now) comments:

I support this bold endeavor! and there's some pretty funny writing in there ...

Thanks, oxenchunk! I Internet love you! That's the kind of love where I don't have to look you in the eye or touch you or feel any kind of emotional embarrassment over telling you that I love you. It's also quite sincere though!

OriginalZinn (I appreciate the use of capital letters here. And I'm sure the pun would be quite good if I knew what Original Sin was. Ha ha! No, no. I meant if I knew who Zinn was. I'm such a silly goof!) comments:

They've written a blog post for every 2 lines. As someone said above, for a 1,200 page book, they will never finish. Maybe their grandkids might be able to

I would love it if you could force your grandkids to continue your blog just by sticking it in your will. Alas, I have no children and no grandchildren. So I guess I'll have to finish on my own! (Remember, the probability of my finishing (and the amount I care about actually finishing as well) can be found in this entry.)

Starphysics (this name sounds too much like homework. Yuck!) just repeats everybody else's worry:

Wow... How long will this take? At this rate they won't even be done in their lifetime.

Oh yeah?! I'll show you, Starphysics! I'm going to live to be one hundred and sixty-five years old! The only thing that will keep me grasping on to this mortal coil will be to prove you wrong and finish this thing!

I don't think I really need to discuss too much more about this actual line. We get it! Lindsay is a stick in the mud! But there's a clue there's more to Lindsay with that "to an impartial observer" bit. The narrator seems to know he cares about more than just disciplining people for their informal language but what could it be? What else could Redditers care about? I mean Lindsay!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 4: Line 21

 "All right, short-stuff, turn to," muttered Lindsay, reluctantly setting the terrified Darby back on his feet.

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Ugh. "Reluctantly." I mean, really, Pynchon, the way you had Lindsay mutter was enough to show his reluctance. But I'll accept that a writer is going to make a few errors in judgment when he's writing a thousand page book in a six point font. Anyway, these jerkos and their love of bullying and power and control have gotten straight up my wazoo!

I can't believe I just criticized Thomas Pynchon's use of one single word! I feel like I can take on the world! I'm mad with power! I . . . I . . . I should utilize this feeling while I have it! Here goes:

You know what else you did wrong, Pynchon?! You didn't prepare me for the amount of boners in your books! That's on you. How was I supposed to know that you loved writing so much about boners?! Maybe it's also on my college professors because if just one of them had said, "You know who really likes to write about boners?" and then answered, "No, Thomas Pynchon," after I had wrongly guessed "Kurt Vonnegut," I would have read all of these books so much sooner!

God, I love boners!

Whew. I feel good making that admission! I feel free!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 4: Line 20

 "The lad has work to do, and if you frighten him that way, he sure won't be of much use."

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Maybe I can give Randolph St. Cosmo the benefit of the doubt by assuming he knows the only way to get Lindsay to stop hassling Darby is to argue the capitalist benefits gained by not torturing the young boy. "We aren't going to get our money's worth out of him, Lindsay!" But you know what? I'm in no mood to be charitable. Buttering up your target to get the reaction you want out of them is tacit approval of the way they're acting. What kind of a lesson is Lindsay learning from this? That it's okay for him to hang crew members over the side of the ship as long as they've finished their work for the day.

Boy howdy how I'd love to swear right now! By heck! Poo!

Even in this adventurous crew of young Victorian lads, we see a rank and file class system that treats the lowest kids on the rung as simple capital to be exploited, completely ignoring their humanity! It's disgusting and I won't be any part of it except to enable it by continuing to read the book! I suppose if I were really adamant to fight back, I'd put the book away and have no part in helping Randolph and Lindsay treat Darby poorly. But if I did that, I would also be denying Darby the chance to get back at them! So, for Darby's sake, I will continue to read Against the Day and hope that he eventually tosses Lindsay over the side of the Inconvenience.

I had a cousin who was reading Garth Ennis's comic book series Preacher who suddenly abandoned it partway through. I asked him why he stopped reading it and he said it was because he didn't like how Arseface was being treated as a huge joke by everybody, especially by Garth Ennis! I then pointed out that my cousin was the greatest monster of all because he left Arseface in the terrible part of his life with no hope of bettering his lot. In my cousin's Preacher, Arseface's life was an utter tragedy. He never became a rock star. He never became happy. He never got to see the arc of his life tend toward joy. I won't let that happen to my Darby!

Oh man. I hope Darby doesn't die! If that happens, will I be accused of murder?!