When the door swung open, Lew noted a bed, a chair, a table, a resonant absence of other furnishing which in different circumstances he would have called sorrowful, but which here he was able, in the instant, to recognize as perfect.
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"a resonant absence"
I suppose this could mean that the absence of furniture caused the room to echo. That's surely one possible interpretation of this usage. But, being that the absence of furniture made the room perfect in this instance, Pynchon could be using the adjective to mean "intensified and enriched by." So the spartan room goes from sorrowful and pathetic to somehow grand and illustrious due to the room's lack.
But why would Lew view this as perfect? Is it because he's on a path to atonement and thus withholding luxuries and comforts seems to be a fitting means of living, for this "instant"? For reasons that are entirely clear to me but which I probably won't explicate any further, this setup brings to mind Samuel Beckett's Murphy. I don't need to explicate it any further because those familiar with Murphy are already picturing Lew sitting naked in the chair in the dark. Actually, the table is probably a bit overkill. I'd have tossed it down the elevator shaft.
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