"It's subject," he was promptly informed by the ever-alert Lindsay Noseworth, who had overheard the exchange, "is the inexorably rising tide of World Anarchism, to be found peculiarly rampant, in fact, at our current destination—a sinister affliction to which I pray we shall suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the fictional leaves of some book."
* * * * * * * * * *
Ding ding ding ding! Postmodern alert! All hands on deck! Ding ding ding ding!
As you can see, my entire understanding of postmodernism is that if characters in a book mention characters in a book, it's meaningful in some way that I can't explain because I don't remember anything I read by Fredric Jameson or Jean Baudrillard or Jean-Francois Lyotard and almost nothing by Foucault and Derrida.
As you can also see, Pugnax, as I mentioned earlier, is definitely the character insert of the reader of Against the Day. "[A]s with Pugnax at this moment" refers to me! I am currently experiencing the rising tide of World Anarchism safely within the fictional leaves of some book (even if I live in Portland, Oregon which has been officially granted the title, by the shittiest president—not the one who did the most shitty things—I mean, George W. Bush? Whoa. Dude. Save some evil for other would-be despots, my dude—but the one who was most shitty at the job!), of an Anarchist Jurisdiction).
As an aside, I have to say that this Anarchist Jurisdiction is really beautiful and the only trouble I've ever had was that one time that cop pulled me over for a traffic violation. His first question to me was "Do you know why I pulled you over?" And then he sat their slack jawed for maybe fifteen seconds after I replied, "Yeah, because I merged all the way over to the left hand lane when I was turning right here." And then he said, "I'm surprised. Usually people say they don't know." Then he went on to explain to me that that one particular traffic violation was his huge pet peeve. And I did not get into a discussion with him about how knowing the law and obeying the law are two separate things and how sometimes (especially if you're a cop!) you disregard a law because it's safer than obeying the law in that particular situation and how laws aren't supposed to be hard and fast rules that must be obeyed at any cost or suffer a penalty of some kind but should be ultimately taken in the spirit of the safety they're intended to bring to the overall populace. Instead, I just made sweeping jerk off motions with my hand (but in my mind only!) whenever he was lecturing me on his great traffic pet peeve and how he's basically The Punisher of Portland when it comes to people merging all the way to the left hand lane when turning right on a one-way street. Also going on in my mind while making the imaginary jerk-off motions (because I can multitask), I was thinking, "How many fucking traffic laws do you break on a daily basis because you're a cop and cops think they're the only mature adults in the city who can make those kinds of decisions and also you're a cop so you don't actually give a fuck about obeying the law. He probably thinks he's above the law (which is a pre-requisite for being a cop) and laws are only there for him to exert power over others, especially those rascally miscreants who commit pet peeves of his!"
This happened like ten years ago and I still hate that petty little monster. I fucking wish Portland were an actual Anarchist Jurisdiction!
This line (getting back to what matters . . . I suppose) is the first hint about a major theme of this book (at least I think it's a major theme! I've only read Chapter One so far!): anarchy! Except not really anarchy. That's just what social justice reform and the fight for systemic change was called back then. Oh, and now as well! Because it really isn't anarchy if you're blowing something up because you want a different set of rules than the terrible authoritarian capitalist class structure rules meant to crush your dreams and consume every minute of every day of your every waking life trying to survive (so much so that you barely have any time to get in your anarchying!). But if you don't like progress because you would make way less money, you have to make progress look scary to the people who are doing just fine in the status quo. So, anarchy! But then, of course, somebody blowing up a factory is kind of scary. So, in one sense, that's kind of bad optics (oh! Optics! We'll get to those later! Literally!). But you can't worry about optics since the factory owners aren't worried about their optics of slave labor and dangerous working conditions and paltry recompense for hourly work. No, the only thing they're worried about is the bottom line. So you have to get to a point where rebuilding blown up factories becomes more expensive than just paying workers a living wage. That's the only thing those monsters (not the police! Different monsters but working together like a Frankenstein/Wolfman team-up) care about.
According to Lindsay (and probably history books I've never paid attention to), Chicago has been hit particularly hard by Anarchy! I'd probably know more about that if I'd ever read Sinclair Lewis. I bet I could read some Sinclair Lewis in public without worrying about not looking cool. Especially here in Portland. People would probably nod knowingly at me as we made eye contact over the top of my prominently held up Lewis book and then we'd flash secret Antifa signs at each other (that's where you cross your eyes and hold up a number of fingers equal to the number of cops you've killed).
