A fellow scarcely knew after a while where to look—
* * * * * * * * * *
The "fellow" in this line is probably a reader of Pynchon. And all of the various mechanical flying contraptions are the themes within his books. Pynchon is showing us that while his themes are extravagantly different from each other, one to the next, they still all relate in one key way: they are all flying machines.
I don't mean to suggest all of his themes are about flying! That was just part of the analogy or metaphor inherent in the subtext of Merle's observation! I don't know, exactly, what the relationship of all of the themes Pynchon is exploring might be. I don't even know what all of the themes are! I've pointed out a few, like light and labor rights and imperialism and racism and Star Trek and technology. But I haven't read the entire book so I'm probably missing a lot of them. But even if I had read the entire book, I'd still probably miss a lot of themes because they concern aspects of life to which I'm barely attuned. Plus, I'd probably not know how they all relate seeing as how I've read Gravity's Rainbow one and a half times (at the moment! It'll soon be two! I swear it!) and I don't think I'd be able to explain it very well. It has something to do with escaping the system by somehow extricating yourself from the eyes and ears of the powers that be, of somehow accepting that you'll never know or control everything and maybe you just need to make peace with that. It has something to do with shoving your sex slave into a rocket and blasting him into oblivion wrapped in a material that might have been used to give a poor little baby a hard-on decades earlier. Whatever it's about, it's a fantastic read and worth it simply because every section is like a short story delving into the philosophy of some aspect of modern life. I'm not sure you even need to read the book straight through to truly enjoy it.
Anyway, the fellow scarcely knowing where to look after a while is just a person reading and trying to understand the newest Pynchon novel. It's as obvious as Pugnax being a Scrappy Doo insert.
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