They were gathered at a marble table in a sort of parlor, over cigars and whiskey.
* * * * * * * * * *
Once again, we see Pynchon, in the early parts of this book, resorting to easily digested tropes and stereotypical clichés. I'm sure it wasn't just me who instantly pictured on my mind easel a bunch of fat cats (actual cats) dressed in elegant suits with fob chains hanging out of their breast pockets, wearing monocles and dangling a cigar out of one corner of their mouth, a small tumbler of whiskey in one hand and sitting around a long table in a room decked out in grandfather clocks and taxidermied animals, maybe with an ornate globe off to one side (which probably opens to conceal more alcohol).
Pynchon is really playing up one-dimensional caricatures for his boys' adventure novel sections. He's practically doubling down on the cartoonish villain of Scarsdale Vibe facing off against the genius but naïve about the real world scientist and his gaggle of heroic adventuring lads.
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