"I'll go have a look," said Lew.
* * * * * * * * * *
Lew's going to go have a look. Unless there's some kind of lookie loo joke here, I think it's a pretty straightforward line.
Thursday, May 6, 2021
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 48 (841)
One night when it seemed Franz Ferdinand had dropped off the map of greater Chicago, Khäutsch got on the telephone and began calling around town, eventually reaching White City Investigations.
* * * * * * * * * *
It's sometimes difficult to follow Pynchon's narrative, at least in a linear manner. So far, Against the Day is easier to follow than Gravity's Rainbow because it has, so far, confined itself to reality (or near enough to reality). Without warning, Gravity's Rainbow would skew into somebody's fantasy or dream or the narrative would sidestep through time or be taken over by an outside perspective of the book as seen through some other medium, like a musical or comic book or news reel. Then you'd have to re-read that section two or three times to figure it out. I imagine some people, being against re-reading the same book they're currently reading, just powered through until they felt they understood it again. Maybe that's a good recommendation to feel you've gotten a foothold on the narrative but I'm completely against it. Don't move on until you feel you've got a grasp on what just happened! Except that bit where Slothrop climbs into the toilet and winds up in some world where there's only one of everything and some cowboy with his sidekick. That was weird.
What I'm getting at is that this line feels like Max is remembering how he came to be dealing with White City Investigations even though it just pops up as if it's a recent story that goes along with Max's revelation of being too clever to keep an eye on the stupid Archduke. This just seems like the beginning of the origin story of how Max and Lew began working together. Although that theory will probably get blown apart by the next line where Lew covers the call to Max and we already know that Lew learned about the Archduke job when he was given the Austro-Hungarian dossier.
What this sentence reveals, I think, is Max's hesitancy to admit that he's failed at his only job. Only after he realizes that he's getting nowhere, he calls up his "opposite number" at White City Investigations in the hopes that his familiarity with Chicago will get the job done.
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 47 (840)
"Perhaps I am too clever to deal efficiently with Habsburg stupidity," mused Khäutsch.
* * * * * * * * * *
This is nearly identical to what I think whenever I lose a game of Magic the Gathering in a tournament. "My decks are just designed too cleverly to beat these stupid idiots!"
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 46 (839)
Despite young Khäutsch's police skills, somehow the Archduke kept giving him the slip.
* * * * * * * * * *
Earlier, Khäutsch was described as being a skilled assassin. Pynchon didn't really go into much detail about his other skills. So now that Pynchon just casually mentions Max's police skills, in a way that implies they are quite exemptional, I have to assume Pynchon is saying cops are assassins. I know he's not but you can't stop me from inferring what I want to infer! Anyway, if Max is good at policing and protection (and killing!), the Archduke must be even better at giving people the slip. It's a skill that saves his life in twenty years when he gives a bunch of assassins the slip. Except later that same day, he's driven back toward one of his assassins who takes advantage of the traffic mix-up and murders him and his wife. I suppose the ability to give one the slip only works when you actively realize there's somebody nearby who needs to be slipped away from.
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 45 (838)
"So? in Austria it is widely remarked upon."
* * * * * * * * * *
The residents of other countries love to categorize the people of other countries by the kinks they're assumed to have. So of course everybody in Austria, whenever they hear somebody mention America, always glance at everybody else around them and smirk and wink and make the international sign of a hot dog going into a doughnut.
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 44 (837)
"Well we . . . we try not to talk about that."
* * * * * * * * * *
If Max's statement, "pastry-depravity," was as innocent as I'm assuming it was even though it sounds like American detectives love to stick their dicks into doughnuts then Lew's response (this sentence) politely explains to me that I made a terrible assumption and Max actually was referencing how American detectives love to stick their dicks into doughnuts. If the topic were just about certain people's affection for devouring doughnuts, I'd imagine Lew would readily discuss it. I know I would. If somebody were all, "What do you think about doughnuts? Love them? Hate them?", I would reply, "I rarely eat doughnuts because I find that if I eat one doughnut, I always want a second doughnut. And if I eat two doughnuts, it makes me wish I hadn't eaten any." Then I'd wink flirtatiously at the Boston Cream.
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 43 (836)
"And this might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Basnight, considering the widely known Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit or pastry-depravity of the American detective. . . ."
* * * * * * * * * *
See? They're telling each other stories! Or maybe Max is just introducing Lew to an Austrian doughnut. He's also making a cops love doughnuts joke which is probably the main point of this sentence. The second main point of the sentence is that Lew and Max have regular conversations over coffee and doughnuts at the start of each day. They're becoming quite chummy.
"Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit"
Pynchon defines it for the reader, this time. He could have used the word for pastry but instead chooses the word for cake batter, I guess? I'm relying on Google translate because the only German part of the phrase I recognize is Kuch and the Non-Certified Spouse, who's practically fluent in German, is currently sleeping. She'd usually give me some insight into the less literal meanings and uses of the German phrases Pynchon loves to stick in his books.
Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 42 (835)
They got into the habit of early-morning coffee at the Austrian Pavilion, accompanied by a variety of baked goods.
* * * * * * * * * *
"They" being Lew, the disgraced interdimensional hopping private dick, and Max, the young Slavic assassin given an American assignment to get him as far away from Austria as possible. They seem to have hit it off, just one banished Joe to another. Caffeine and baked goods seem to symbolize comfort, camaraderie, and story telling in a Pynchon novel. At least in two Pynchon novels, this one and Mason & Dixon. It's also possible there was a scene with coffee and baked goods in Gravity's Rainbow but it evaded my perception being that it wasn't something that was on my radar while reading it.
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