Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Line 143 (937)

 "It may not be quite the West you're expecting," Professor Vanderjuice put in.

* * * * * * * * * *

How does Vanderjuice know what West Lew Basnight is expecting? In 1893, if you were moving west from Chicago, how wild and lawless did you expect it to be? Looking up a timeline, it wasn't until 1844 that Oregon City became the first incorporated city west of the Rocky Mountains. So let's say 50 years of "civilization" digging in its fancy heels. At the tail end of those fifty years later, a bunch of Western and Midwestern states are only just being admitted into the Union. Much of the famous Wild West outlaws are still making waves although their time is quickly waning. The massacre of hundreds of Lakota Sioux has just recently taken place at Wounded Knee. So I imagine somebody going from Chicago to Denver would still be expecting a dangerous frontier (I'd say mostly from law men and the military but the press has probably taken their sides through most of the breaking news).

Is Vanderjuice's statement an indication of how much technology has crept across the west? In 1881, San Jose, California, became the first city west of the Rocky Mountains with electric civic lighting. No wonder the area became Silicon Valley! Always on the forefront of technology, right? Anyway, that's twelve years prior to Vanderjuice saying this sentence. And Vanderjuice, being a technological scientist (and a knower of the world's secrets which he sends the Chums of Chance to investigate or stop or help spread), probably knows exactly what kind of west Lew Basnight is headed for. Less a Wild West frontier and maybe a frontier of technology and changing social ideas.

Or maybe Vanderjuice will explain what he means in the paragraph of dialogue that follows this! If he does, at least I've prepared myself with a tiny little foundation of western knowledge.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Lines 141-142 (935-936)

 "At least they tell you where it is you'll be sent off to. After the closing-day ceremonies here, our future's all a blank."

* * * * * * * * * *

"they tell you where it is you'll be sent off to"
"They" tell you a lot of stuff about how things will be but only time can tell you how things were. Randolph's vague "Denver" isn't a whole lot more helpful than Randolph's unknown next location.

"our future's all a blank"
But it isn't, is it? Pynchon has already written the book. The pages are full. It's just that Randolph has no awareness of that future yet. Pynchon is writing a book where he drops the reader into an 1893 timeline. The reader knows, if only vaguely, the Randolph's world's twists and turns and, while not its ultimate destination, at least as far as mile marker 2022 (or later, for the future readers). Randolph's future isn't blank. Nobody's future is blank. It is merely unknown. It is yet to be revealed. Time is like a book already written and life like the reader's eyes moving across the page. Some may look at it more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where they have some illusion of free will about the outcome, and others are content to believe what will happen will happen, and always will happen, or always has happened. Randolph's future is anything but blank. Even when Pynchon wrote that line, he probably already knew how Randolph's story will conclude in this book. Or, at least, the point where Pynchon will leave off Randolph's story. Will Randolph's future be blank then? I suppose time will tell, no?

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Line 140 (934)

 Randolph had a sympathetic look.

* * * * * * * * * *

Randolph is probably about to explain how the Chums of Chance are constantly having to move on as well. He may paint it as an issue of living in a balloon and having to take missions all over the world. But I'm sure he's really thinking about how, as an angel, he was required to leave Heaven for his mission on Earth. That's speculation on my part but it's based on evidence!

Remember, my theory is that Randolph is based on Blake's character Orc in America a Prophecy (and other works). He's a fallen character (as in Lucifer!) who symbolizes rebellion and freedom. Orc manages to get Americans to rise up in revolution and bring down their oppressors. From what I've seen so far, Against the Day takes a strong pro-union stance and most of the main characters are sympathetic to the poor and working class.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Lines 138-139 (932-933)

 "I'll be gone by then. They're sending me west, fellows, and I guess it's so long."

* * * * * * * * * *

Lew's lighting out for the Territory. It's against his will but wasn't it, technically and historically, against almost everybody's will to light out for the Territory? I'm not saying it wasn't a choice but, I mean, was it really?! Leaving civilization and everything you knew to make your way into the chaos of the unknown? Gotta be a lot more to it than Free Will. Like that family in The VVitch. Not only did they "light out for the Territory" from England because their religious beliefs basically forced them out but then they lighted out for an even further Territory when they were banished from town. Forces conspire to drive people westward which often means those driven westward are the best of the bunch because the status quo was their only enemy and chaos, their only friend.

Anyway, that's my belief, being from the West Coast!

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Line 137 (931)

 "Still some weeks till the fair closes," said Randolph.

* * * * * * * * * *

Randolph, not realizing he's speaking to a terminally ill person, declares there is still plenty of time left to do the things they love. Not that Lew made himself particularly clear (nor is he terminally ill. That was a metaphor!).

The fair ended on October 30th, 1893 so according to Randolph's timeline, we must currently be in late September or early October.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Line 136 (930)

 His presence made it no easier for Lew to impart his news, but he did manage at last to blurt, "Doggone but I'm going to miss this."

* * * * * * * * * *

I suppose there are some lines that I could easily skip past without comment but then what would be the worth of this project? It's lines like these, when I feel I have nothing to research or any mediocre insight to give, where I usually just write a sonnet!

Lew did, at last, manage to blurt, "Doggone!"
To indicate that which he could not speak,
His words become a jumble of frog spawn
Replaced by euphemistic blasphemy.

Long gone, his past, a vagary through sin
Occluded by dense mists of mystery.
His wife, his friends, his place of time within. . .
At most, a phantom ache, lost history.

Future, now cast, by Nate's paranoid stones.
Denver Heaven? Or a possible Hell?
Leaving a life well loved for an unknown
Unclear to all 'cept waiting time to tell.

"Doggone but I am going to miss this."
The present lament for all who exist.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 52: Line 135 (929)

 Lew's detective reflexes warned him of something deeply evasive about this personable academic, which he guessed the boys were aware of, too, though it was their business what to make of it.

* * * * * * * * * *

"something deeply evasive about this personable academic"
Vanderjuice obviously feels shame for working with Scarsdale Vibe but could Lew be sensing something more than that? Vanderjuice's envy of Tesla's mind and ability has led him to work with Scarsdale Vibe against the good of mankind. If he's willing to do that, what else might he be willing to do? How might he be manipulating the boys and what ends does he have them working towards?

"which he guessed the boys were aware of"
Randolph was certainly aware that Heino wasn't being entirely truthful about his reasons for being in Chicago but it doesn't seem Randolph's suspicion of Heino went much further than that. It was because Heino was acting so out of character that caused Randolph to worry. For now, I'll assume Heino has everybody's best interest in mind but he's stumbled into a dangerous association with Scarsdale too deep from which to extricate himself. I know how history has turned out and the world doesn't have free energy so I'm not holding out hope that Scarsdale Vibe is somehow defeated in his machinations.