As tears of frustration began to gather in Randolph's eyes, Lindsay, sensing in his chief a familiar inertia, his speech only temporarily muffled by Miles's elbow, rushed, or more accurately crawled, into the vacuum of authority.
* * * * * * * * * *
And just like that, 137 lines into the book, I kind of love Lindsay. This moment makes Lindsay a better person than me. He sees his captain overwhelmed by frustration and emotion and moves to take Randolph's burden. I wish I had whatever strength it takes to be like that instead of wrapped up in my own selfishness and paranoid projections of possible manipulation. Lindsay is not only being a good second-in-command here; he's being a good friend as well.
"Familiar inertia" suggests Randolph has previously fallen into this state of paralytic frustration in the past, abandoning his post and responsibility, through no purposeful fault of his own, of course, but due to a minor defect in character, or, possibly, the opposite, a strength of love and emotion for his crew and ship so strong that it can leave him helpless in the face of the impending destruction of either. But loyal and perceptive Lindsay is there to take the reins and bear Randolph's cross.
That's not the appropriate analogy for this, is it? It's just that I used burden earlier so I didn't want to say "shoulder his burden of leadership" even though that's way more appropriate since Randolph has no reason to be bearing a cross here. Unless he sees leadership as a punishment for his sin of caring too much?
Also note the use of the terms "inertia" and "vacuum." Pynchon doesn't want you forgetting that this book is, at its core (maybe? Who knows?! I don't!), about physics.
If you've read this book before and it isn't about physics, no need to tell me. I'll discover that soon enough!
On a side note, I wonder what Pugnax has been up to while the ship has been crashing? Dumb dog!
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