Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 39: Line 93 (675)

 He tried to answer honestly, despite a constant struggle with the pen they insisted he use, which was leaving blotches and smears all over the form.

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Pynchon is easier to grok when he's using difficult scientific theories as analogies for mundane modern occurrences than when he's simply writing a scene where some amnesiac sinner has run into a stand-in for the devil (or Bill W) and begins to stumble through the bureaucratic nonsense that's his only path to atonement. At least with a scientific theory I don't understand, I can read about it on the Internet, giving myself a place to begin figuring out what Pynchon might be getting at. But where do you start with something this broad and open-ended? Is our interpretation of Lew's experience of atonement supposed to rely on our own backgrounds and where we come from? Or is Pynchon getting at something intensely specific?

Here, Lew struggles with a pen given to him by Drave and associates, the first tool in a specific method of atonement. Generically, this could be any religion or self-help association. I'm most familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous so I see Lew's path to recovery through that lens. Drave and a group of people embrace Lew, who comes to them for help, and they declare they can help him. But they also have a strict set of rules that he must follow if it's going to be successful. Struggling to be honest with a pen that blotches and smears is a metaphor for trying to help yourself within the constraints of a 12-step program that isn't specifically suited for any one person (except maybe Bill W and Doctor Bob).

But this can also be a metaphor for Christianity or any other religion or any system of betterment akin to AA. "We can help you but you must do as we say" is always the caveat. "We know better than you or else why would you be in this situation in which you can't live?" "It worked for me so it can work for you as long as you work it."

Anyway, that's what the leaky pen symbolizes for me. It's the first step for helping Lew on the road to atonement and it proves the journey will not be easy. Is it Lew's leaky pen that's difficult or is it actually the being honest with himself?