When their business was done, they invited him over to a table under an awning, where all at once, over root beer and Saratoga chips, Lew found himself confessing "everything," which in fact wasn't much—"What I need is some way to atone for whatever it is I've done. I can't keep on with this life. . . ."
* * * * * * * * * *
This entire scene, with Lew Basnight at the head of it, is reminiscent of a character's definition of magic in The Crying of Lot 49: "another world's intrusion into this one". I'm not suggesting there's something magic going on here! Obviously in this novel, it's going to be something scientific! But it brings up a theme shared by many (if not all? I haven't read them all!) Pynchon novels: one world intruding on another. Here in Against the Day, we get an example of this that's as literal as Pynchon can probably get.
Already this book purports, in the typical Pynchonian way, to be a "historical fiction" of our own world, thus a world intruding on another world." Then within this world, we have the fictional world of the Chums of Chance novel and the Chums intruding on the Against the Day world from their fictionalized world. And here we have Lew Basnight, almost certainly from a different Chicago on a different world, intruding on this Chicago and subsequently entering another pocket universe of people who seem to also be intruding on this world. What does it all mean?! I don't know. I never got my Master's Degree in Literature.
Who are these people and what world are they from? It's like Lew has found himself on the set of a PBS kids show, Sesame Street or Villa Alegre. They are just as welcoming to strangers as you'd expect a character from one of these shows. Is it because they, too, have somehow intruded upon this world in their own waking swoon? Is that how somebody winds up living on Sesame Street?
"I need is some way to atone for whatever it is I've done"
There are two major ways to get through life: denial or atonement. Most people choose denial, the most popular form simply being passive distraction. Books, movies, video games, drinking, drugs, sports . . . you name it, it's been done in the name of trying to forget about death. It's a hell of a motivator, really. Sitting around bored too often leads to existential thoughts and morbid fantasies.
But some people, probably those with the most finely tuned sense of self-reflection, choose atonement. Even if, like Lew, you can't really put your finger on what you need to atone for. There's certainly something because we're social beings who live our entire lives surrounded by other people while we allow our selfish desires and motivations to guide us. There's going to be a lot of collateral damage along the way, seen and unseen. You don't have to have a religious bone in your body to understand that maybe you owe the other people trying to get by in life along with you an occasional apology. That's mostly what atonement is. It's just saying, "I'm sorry," to anybody and everybody and yourself.
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