Not for the first time, he experienced a kind of waking swoon, which not so much propelled as allowed him entry into an urban setting, like the world he had left but differing in particulars which were not slow to reveal themselves.
* * * * * * * * * *
I thought Pugnax was the reader insert in this book but it looks like Lew Basnight is literally a character inserted into the novel from some outside realm. Maybe it makes sense. Pugnax is a reader and, as a dog on the boy's airship, an observer of other characters. He's also a fighter though! Maybe that's how Pynchon thinks of his readers. Unless Pugnax is supposed to represent the critics. That makes sense! Anyway, Lew Basnight is also an observer from outside the novel. He's literally on the Inconvenience to make observations and study his surroundings. He became a detective which the readers of Pynchon's novels must also become, searching for clues and meaning in the text.
In this scene, we're explicitly told that there's a world Lew just left. Yes, that can be taken as metaphorical in that he's left his wife and job and suddenly finds himself living in Chicago proper. But he also points out that things in this world are quite different and often show themselves to those capable of seeing them.
"waking swoon"
This could be a way of describing reading. Sort of like a daydream. A conscious effort to enter another world, to dream while awake. Reading allows entry into another world, not always like the one the reader lives in—quite often nothing like it. But Lew's new world has both many similarities and differences and his waking swoon allows him to see and sort through these differences. But he's started reading too far into the book to understand his sin and none of the characters want to rehash his tired old plot! So now he's just got to get on the best he can in his new world.
I haven't read any of his novels (only some of his comic books) but a lot of Against the Day so far reminds me of the things I've read describing China Miéville novels. Since I've only really read synopses of China's work (and his comic Dial H), I can't pursue this possible connection. But China would probably support all of the pro-union themes in Against the Day, no?
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