Thoughts and Quotes

I am enjoying reading Against the Day! I'm taking it slow, often rereading pages at a time. There is a very large scientific, intellectual side to this novel, as scientists explore the Æther, which was thought to be the bearer of light. Coincidentally enough, I have recently finished learning a little about the properties of light, so I am interested in these sections (though much of the scientific language is largely impossible to follow, so I make do with the general ideas presented). Earth's electromagnetic field, ways to travel through Earth's interior, ships flying through Earth's atmosphere...the whole novel is teeming with science. Another aspect of the novel I really enjoy is Pynchon's writing style. Sometimes, it seems Against the Day is made up of parts that are greater than the whole. What I mean with that is that reading Against the Day, you get lost in whatever story Pynchon is throwing you into at the moment. Reading one part, say about Webb Traverse, a dynamite-loving, mining, Union member, whose family life is talked about in some great detail, you almost forget about the Chums of Chance on their world-wide expeditions, or the conscious "meteorite" who, seeking revenge for being taken, has destroyed a whole city in hellish fires. The novel has great historical value, too, as important times in America's history are subtly examined. Webb Traverese, for example, embodies the pain and frustration workers experienced for decades under the remorseless company owners. The novel is humorous, delightfully entertaining, and at other times more poignant than expected (especially when describing scenery).


Here are some selected quotes:

"Webb was standing in the middle of the place, lines on his face set like stone, patch of sunlight just touching his foot, so still. 'So still,' Mayva remembered later, 'it wasn't him at all, really, it was somethin he'd gotten to be and from then on wouldn't be nothing else, anymore, and I should have known then, oh, daughter, I should have....'" - 192

"...but we do use one another, often mortally, with the same disablement of feeling, of conscience...each of us knowing that as some point it will be our own turn. Nowhere to run but into a hostile and lifeless waste." -147

"Lights and noise, just to keep us hoppin like trained baboons." -111

"...and if it took growing into a stranger to those kids and looking like some kind of screaming fool whenever he did show up at home, and then someday sooner or later losing them, their clean young gazes, their love and trust, the unquestioning way they spoke your name, all that there is to break a father's heart, well, children grow up, and that would have to be reckoned into the price, too, along with jail time, bullpens, beatings, lockouts, and the rest. The way it happens. Web would have to set aside his feelings, not just the sentimental baby stuff but the terrible real ballooning of emptiness at the core of his body when he paused to consider all that losing them would mean." -95

"Damn. The first time Webb saw hard proof of this going on, he felt like a kid about to cry. That the world should know so little about what was good for it." -85

"The small vibratoless voices, wind in cottonwoods. Cooper's fingers squeaking along the wire-wrapped strings, creaky percussion of wagon traffic in the dirt streets. The onset of siesta time. The pearl and windless sky. And who meanwhile had materialized in the upstairs window? The boy's ironclad lip slid up into the most unexpected of smiles, not very controlled, way too longing. Sage appeared on the outside stairs in some saloon-dancer's practice concern of palest grays, all legs and sobriety, coming down to him so smoothly, all as easy and light as a breath..." -203

"He understood that things were exactly what they were. It seemed more than he could bear." -42

"...and spiders adorned the sash work with webs that when the early daylight was right could cause you to stand there just stupefied." -76