Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 19 (601)

 "Although the longer a fellow's name has been in the magazines, the harder it is to tell fiction from non-fiction."

* * * * * * * * * *

Okay, maybe Randolph does understand the ambiguity of comparing the Chums to Wyatt Earp.

I'm sure Pynchon loved the idea of suggesting the difficulty of telling fiction from non-fiction since he puts so much effort into the historical accuracy of his books while also seeding them with wildly unbelievable scenes and confusing but imaginative flights of fancy. Just think about Byron the Bulb in Gravity's Rainbow! Nobody's going to mistake that for non-fiction but it's the kind of whimsical strangeness that he loves to sprinkle into texts full of painstakingly accurate details. So you know Pynchon will vacillate wildly from one extreme to the other so that when you're reading a bit that sounds historically accurate, you can't know for sure that it's not. Or what about that scene in Gravity's Rainbow where Slothrop is being cajoled into eating all the wine jellies and it's so funny that you figure it's all got to be made up but then you accidentally find an old advertisement on the Internet for a Meggezone and your head explodes and you decide, "I'm just going to believe everything Pynchon writes is true until somebody disproves it for me."

So right now, I believe young lads flew around the world in airships, dogs could talk and read, and Laszlo Jamf once conditioned a baby to get unprovoked boners. Which, while obviously being silly in a shocking way, is based on the Pavlovian "Little Albert" experiment by John Watson and Rosalie Rayner in which they conditioned a small child to be afraid of small animals. Famously in this experiment, like in Slothrop's case, Little Albert was never deconditioned, let alone brought back to "beyond the zero."

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 18 (600)

 "No more than Wyatt Earp or Nellie Bly," Randolph supposed.

* * * * * * * * * *

Wyatt Earp and Nellie Bly are famously regarded as real people and not storybook characters.

"Wyatt Earp"
The mention of Wyatt Earp is probably meant to tie in to the picture of Doc Holliday in Nate Privett's office. But he's also a living person made famous by his exploits hunting down the Cowboys in Tombstone, Arizona. Unbeknownst to Randolph, he's a nicely ambiguous choice for modern readers because what we know of Wyatt Earp is almost certainly highly fictionalized from Hollywood movies. So Randolph isn't exactly clearing up the question as to whether the Chums are storybook characters or not.

"Nellie Bly"
Randolph probably chooses to compare the Chums of Chance to Nellie Bly because of her trip around the world, alone, in 72 days. Not that she was alone the whole way, steering empty steam ships and acting as the conductor on international trains! She just wasn't chaperoned and didn't have any friends. It was quite sad.
    Nellie Bly also infiltrated an insane asylum, inventing gonzo journalism. Unless she just invented investigative journalism. Maybe if she'd done more drugs and had more sex while in the asylum, she could have invented gonzo journalism.

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Lines 14-17 (596-599)

 "Wild West, African explorers, the usual adventure stuff. But you boys—you're not storybook characters." He had a thought. "Are you?"

* * * * * * * * * *

Thanks for asking at least one tough question, Lew! Here are some others you might consider: What are these kids?! Who's publishing their stories?! How do they have a dog that can read, talk (incomprehensibly to most but the Chums seem to understand him), and loves to fight?! Where are their parents? Does Randolph St. Cosmo think I'm cute? What organization do they work for that basically operates under the "Prime Directive" from Star Trek?

Obviously we, the readers, know they're storybook characters. Even Lew is a storybook character so it's odd that he's asking other storybook characters if they're storybook characters. It's like when I'm in a dream and I ask another person in the dream if they're a dream but, even in the dream, I still hold onto the belief that I'm real. It's also like when I'm not in a dream and I ask another person if they're a dream while I'm still holding onto the belief that I'm real.

I am real. Aren't I?

"He had a thought. 'Are you?'"
How insane does Lew Basnight have to be to seriously think these kids are storybook characters? I mean they are storybook characters so I guess Lew is actually having a major epiphany here and isn't insane at all. He's the only one suddenly seeing clearly! But if I suspend my disbelief and try to forget that this is a storybook I'm reading then Lew totally seems to have lost his mind, right?

I'm so confused.

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 13 (595)

 Lew obligingly tried to remember.

* * * * * * * * * *

Lew's old enough to have a hard time remembering what books he read as a youth. How long have the Chums of Chance been around?! That's a rhetorical question because I know the answer is "eternity," what with being angels and all.

* * * * * * * * * *

Postscript: We'll find out later that Lew has a bit of an issue with his memories. The version of me that's on Page 48 of the book is writing this so we might find out, eventually, what that's all about. My main theory is that he somehow slipped from one timeline to this one. And the timeline Lew came from is the real version of this book's storybook version. So he's, in some way, more real than the other characters.