Connotations 18.1-3 (2008/2009)

Pynchon Takes the Fork in the Road
The idiosyncratic Pynchon has a heyday with relativity theory. He
describes an advanced weapons-sighting device, allegedly in use in
1900, with which “gunners were abolishing Time—what they saw
‘now’ in the sights was in fact what did not yet exist but would only be a
few seconds from ‘now’” (Against 256). Even Luca Zombini, the professional
magician in Against the Day, had “long been interested in
modern science and the resources it made available to conjurors,
among these the Nicol prism and the illusionary uses of double
refraction” (Against 354). Luca explains to his daughters, including his
step-daughter Dally, how he saws his assistants in half:
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“You already know about this stuff here.” Bringing out a small, near-perfect
crystal of Iceland spar. “Doubles the image, the two overlap, with the right
sort of light, the right lenses, you can separate them in stages, a little further
each time, step by step till in fact it becomes possible to saw somebody in
half optically, and instead of two different pieces of one body, there are now
two complete individuals walking around, who are identical in every way,
capisci?” (355)
In the ensuing exchange with her father, Bria asks Luca if it’s “a happy
ending. Do they go back to being one person again?” (355). A little
defensive, Luca stares at his shoes and replies:
“No, and that’s been kind of a running problem here. Nobody can figure
out—“
“Oh, Pop.”
“—how to reverse it. I’ve been everywhere, asked everybody, college professors,
people in the business, even Harry Houdini himself, no dice.
Meanwhile …”
“[D]on’t tell me.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, how many?”
“Maybe … two or three?”
“Porca miseria, so that’s four or six, right? You realize you could get sued for
that?” (Against 355)
Coming only eight pages after Dally has the episode of OCD, it appears
that her catastrophizing half-sister, Bria, has the same genetic
disorder. We almost wonder whether Pynchon, having imagined