Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 47: Line 39 (832)

 Despite his youth he was said to give an impression of access to resources beyond his own, of being comfortable in the shadows and absolutely unprincipled, with an abiding contempt for any distinction between life and death.

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Max Khäutsch is the Darth Maul of Against the Day. That means he's both a tremendous bad-ass and, I'm predicting, he's defeated in a humiliatingly brief battle.

I'm just talking about The Phantom Menace Darth Maul and not all of Darth Maul's subsequent appearances and build up of his character simply because some marketer was all, "Wait. The most loved character in this movie died immediately? What are we going to do about that." And somebody shrugged and was all, "Not much we can do! Kenobi cut him in half!" And then a mahogany table full of suits sat around brainstorming, mostly going, "Um. Uh. Duh?" Then one of them was all, "Wasn't Darth Vader, like, 85% robot?" And somebody snapped their fingers and was all, "Yes! Darth Maul can be half robot! Now, which half should we make robot?" After that they worked out the details and stuck him in some cartoons.

Just in case my comparison with Darth Maul doesn't mean anything to you, let me say that Max seems like a savant when it comes to criminal activity and assassination. Everybody says, "He's so young! But his contacts with the underground and his knowledge of the 1893 dark web are astounding! Unparalleled! This boy can do anything he wants, especially since he's unconcerned with how many people are standing between his target and the wildly erratic sword he's swinging!"

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 31: Line 107 (479)

 On the way into the lobby, an elderly woman, respectably though not sumptuously dressed, approached him, crying, "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle."

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Holy shit. I thought I was being harsh with Scarsdale Vibe just on account of his name and his wealth! Apparently I was spot on! Good for you, soon to probably be dead woman!

This woman will probably never get a name but she's my favorite character in the book. Now I'm going to sound like my super nerdy friend whose favorite character in a popular movie franchise or television show always had to be some obscure character (at least obscure before the Internet made nothing obscure at all). So his favorite character in Star Wars was Wedge Antilles and his favorite character in Star Trek: The Next Generation was Reginald Barclay. This was also my friend who ruined Magic the Gathering for everybody by bringing the first stupid Scrye magazine into the house. Suddenly everybody had a monetary value for each of their cards and they refused to play for ante. It became less a game and more of an investment in a collector's pastime.

I wish somebody had said this to Donald Trump's face. Man, what a great line. "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle." The fucking shade of it. I'm in awe. Bravo, poor woman! Hoorah!

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Lines 42-44 (147-149)

 "Eh?" Randolph beginning to regain his air of phlegmatic competence. "How's that?"

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With the emergency at an end, Randolph straightens his uniform, slicks back his hair, and is ready to get his airship back on course.

In other words: after the bout of slapstick took control of the narrative, Pynchon composes himself and is ready to get back to the highbrow thematic qualities in which he started this chapter with all that talk about dark conjugates and daylit fictions and the working class being treated like cattle in a stockyard.

I placed these three sentences in one post because they could easily have been one line with the proper punctuation and also because I can't write an entire blog entry on "Eh?" or "How's that?"

No, no. That's not true. I'm positive I could. But it would probably wind up being a story about the first movie I ever remember seeing (Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown at a drive-in which I don't remember as much as I remember watching the beginning of Star Wars on another screen before having to turn around and watch the cartoon).