Magic Realism in Pynchon's Shadow Ticket

 "On the one hand, one would be a fool to think that reading a book about magical initiation is sufficient to constitute initiation. On the other hand, there are books where the text itself is the secret ... Texts can wind their import down twisted paths of verbal subterfuge such that to experience the course of their proceedings and the intensity and inner resonances of their content is to be brought to an experience on one's own terrain of what the author would lead one on to. " - Charles Stein, The Occult Harry Smith.

"Yet conscience must find ways to go on operating inside history." Shadow Ticket, p. 279

This post will inevitably contain spoilers.

Common knowledge in the Pynchon universe holds that his historical novels include some subtext on the present time. Shadow Ticket is set mostly in 1932 when Fascism appeared in the ascendent around the world including the United States. Fascism plays a dominating role in the novel both in the macro geopolitical aspect and with the individual experiences and encounters by the characters. The story's timeline finishes around Christmas 1932. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in January, 1933. The Hitler movement in the U. S. first comes into the picture at the start of chapter 4. Hitler gets blended with Charlie Chaplin's humorous caricature of him from The Dictator followed by a serious portrayal that seems accurate until he's described as someone who "says whatever comes into his head." The real Hitler did not have that trait, he never went off script in his meticulously crafted speeches. This kind of verbal diarrhea clearly fits a contemporary American politician. I see at least one other parallel to the same politician with an episode that flashes back on Bruno Airmont's sexual attraction to his then teenage daughter Daphne.

Magic realism appears self defining – elements of magic blending in with so-called "reality." Shadow Ticket constantly walks a fine line between the paranormal, events difficult to explain by the rules of known physics, and the "real." Pynchon articulates this fine line in the opening quote before the title page that's attributed to Bela Lugosi from The Black Cat (1934). "Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney . . . perhaps not." I recently saw this film and recommend it for getting into the mood of the book. The film is set in Hungary where a fair amount of Shadow Ticket takes place in the second half. Lugosi's character's name is Vitus Werdegast thus aligning to Pynchon's great propensity for using the letter V; done here with high frequency. Werdegast is a German name; the W has a V sound. I expand the sense of magic with a Hermetic definition: causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. 

Shadow Ticket (ST) starts out as a detective story then slowly morphs into something closer to espionage and spycraft. The protagonist, Hicks McTaggert, works for the Unamalgamated Ops detective agency. He gets the assignment to locate and bring back Daphne Airmont, the heiress to a cheese conglomerate owned by her father, Bruno, who has apparent ties to organized crime.  He's known as the Al Capone of Cheez (as it's frequently spelled). Assignments from the agency are known as tickets. When asked to go on other assignments by different people he invariable defers by saying Unamalgamated would have to open a ticket on that. Shadow Ticket can thus be seen as the reader's assignment to act as a detective in a particular way. In post modern offerings the idea of suggesting the reader put in the effort to decipher the literature like a detective turns up in novels by Robert Anton Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov with a reference to the archetypal detective Sherlock Holmes. Shadow Ticket gives the nod to Holmes on page 8 in the words of the young Skeet Wheeler who aspires to be a detective. 

So let's begin to unlock this occult transmission. I have previously outlined some of the elements and sources Pynchon's uses in his lexicon of symbolism and allusions in the recent Vineland reading group held over at rawillumination.net. Themes and characters from Pynchon's novels connect and bleed into each other, perhaps none more so than Shadow Ticket.  The two most obvious, blatantly obvious examples in this novel being Vineland (Vin) and Against the Day (AtD). I also see less obvious allusions to Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon. It turns out the aforementioned Skeet Wheeler appears the father of Zoyd Wheeler from Vineland.  Looking for something else in a Reddit group I came across this from user sylvester_stencil:

"He is 100% Zoyd's father. At the end of the novel Skeet tells Hicks he's moving to California with a girl he's fallen for named Zin. Skeet's real name is Floyd. Zin + Floyd = Zoyd." 

Skeet, appears an adolescent somewhere in his mid to late teens, I believe, so the timeline matches up. ST ends with the young Wheeler writing a letter to Hicks. Skeet is the last word in the novel. Zoyd Wheeler enters in the second phrase of Vin. Like DL Chastain in Vin, Hicks goes through some Oriental training that changes his mindset. ST mentions the word "prairie" in its usual sense maybe four times; the first time it's directly connected with "winter surf" (opposite of Vin's summer surf) and a booming foghorn. Fog appears a number of times in both novels. Fog seems a kind of shadow. Horn = the Hierophant who communicates the secrets so a booming foghorn indicates a strong communication from the Temple which I consider Vineland to be.   

 The theme of freedom v fascism occurs in both books though the balance appears reversed; more explicit freedom in Vin; far more fascism in ST, very little, if any explicit freedom though we'll see an allusion to a path toward life, love liberty and light.    

Lew Basnight works as a detective in both ST and AtD. The ocean liner Stupendica also shows up in both novels. A main theme, resistance to the invocation, evident in the title Against the Day, finds ample expression in ST beginning with the first sentence: "When trouble comes to town, it usually takes the North Shore Line." AtD has some strong parallels with the spiritual crisis known as Crossing the Abyss. Represented on the Tree of Life, it doesn't seem too far out to describe this crossing as a north shore line since it can traverse from Tiphareth to the Supernal Triad. 

Speaking of Qabalah, like many of his novels Pynchon gives some obvious correspondences as if to say look in that direction. ST = 69 which often indicates a reversal of some kind. Both the freedom v fascism theme and the Skeet/Zoyd connection fits this. The obvious example comes in chapter 6 when Basnight shows Hicks a gunhand maneuver that involves handing over your gun to your adversary butt first then:  ". . . you can spin the sucker around and shoot whoever's trying to take it away from you." Chapter 6 might be the shortest in the book and consists mostly of this trick though we do find another reversal. Basnight tells Hicks: "Just so long as you ain't another one of those metaphysical detectives out looking for Revelation." In AtD Lew Basnight operates as a psychical detective. Of course, any reader trying to figure out this or any other multilevel, multifaceted piece of literature works as a metaphysical detective if only because I consider language itself as metaphysical. I suspect most people do not because language appears so ingrained as a representation of physical reality. The notion of language as metaphysical gets greatly elaborated in Gilles Deleuze's Logic of Sense – where I started looking at language in this way. However, the point of the hermetic, esoteric data given in this book appears decidedly NOT to be personal enlightenment or revelation, but that my occur as a side effect. Lew qualifies it when he poo poos working as a metaphysical detective. 

Another blatant correspondence occurs in chapter 13 which has a lot of back story on Bruno Airmont  and his Cheese empire. In an interesting encounter a drunk or stoned Bruno, introduces himself as the Al Capone of Cheez to the real Al Capone. I won't spoil the rest of the joke. Al Capone is the first human in the novel, introduced as "Big Al" in the second sentence. Here, TP calls him "Big Fella." Both monikers were really nicknames for Capone. "Big" seems a significant indicator of esoteric functioning elaborated upon not too far ahead. Al calls Bruno a card. Bruno on his road of excess with a likely psychoactive drink thinks of the card numbered XIII, the Death card in the Tarot. That tells us that the chapter number, 13 in this case, may hold some Qabalah. I would argue that the page number can too. The theme of Death plays throughout most if not all of TP's ouevre. I'll get to more references later. One interpretation of the title Shadow Ticket: a detective assignment to piece together an experiential model of Death given that shadow connects with the Bardo. This connection gets made explicit at the bottom of page 60. The connection with the bardo, shadow and fog has precedence in Dante's Inferno Canto XXXI. 

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In the early 90's after questioning Robert Anton Wilson he suggested I go to E. J. Gold's School, "but get out before it's too late." At a dinner with Bill Laswell in NY Peter Lamborn Wilson told me he thought Gold was the only one giving genuine Sufi instruction; he put down both Idries Shah and Gurdjieff for putting too much of their own thing into Sufi teachings which I disagreed with. Thomas Pynchon worked with Gold some time in the late 60's or early 70's in LA. Unfortunately, I don't know any details. But it really stands out to me in his work, especially Shadow Ticket. I suggest that a strong connection and transmission from an inner School can be seen here. I would argue TP's entire body of work constitutes an inner mystery school in itself if seen, decoded, assimilated and acted upon.

I suspect Pynchon refers to Gold here: "Kelly flips one switch and it's all lit up like Dearborn and Randolph. More dazzling as the night advances" p. 113. This is an intersection in downtown in Chicago. Randolph suggests Randolph St. Cosmo, the leader of the Chums of Chance from Against the Day a character obviously based on Gold. He manages to repeat this intersection at the top of chapter 25 referring to its quality of brightness at night while comparing it to an intersection in Budapest.

More importantly, Pynchon alludes, multiple times, to one of Gold's foundational disciplines known as the Popcorn Exercise. It's the initial exercise from his book Practical Work On Self. The kernel of corn to be popped becomes a metaphor for activating the emotional centrum; turning on and opening up the heart chakra. It's an operation in Tiphareth-6, thus showing a parallel to Crowley's Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. This initially occurs in ST when Hicks takes his girlfriend April to see the film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi on Valentine's Day in Chicago. By the time the film finishes "she'd eaten six cubic feet of popcorn." A cube has 6 sides; the two 6s side suggests 6 x 6 = 36 – coming up later.  Seventeen pages ahead we see the phrase "popcorn by the bucketful." By Notarikon (adding the initials of a sentence or phrase), p + b + t + b = 93. Then, on page 93, "sack of movie popcorn." The Notarikon appears relevant there as well, but I'm not going that deep into it. 93 represents the Thelemic current because 93 corresponds to both Love and Will. In chapter 28 after the story has shifted to Eastern Europe, Bruno and Daphne go see a film and have a brief discussion about the way they serve popcorn there that easily applies to the metaphor of Gold's exercise: "... through a mouthful of giant exploded kernels fiery with erös paprika ..."

Hicks has a hatmaker named Vito Cubanelli. Vito = vital; Cube = 6; hat+maker, hat = Kether thus maker of Kether through the vital cube; pretty strong clue there. There's mention made of "mercury fumes." Mercury corresponds with Hod-8. Thus we see Tiphareth-6 along with Hod-8 giving us the magic number 68 of which I've talked so much about previously. 68 seems most usually represented with the SC letter combination; we see that combo here in the hatmaker bit. Elsewhere, we find another connection with Vineland where Prairie makes her special "Spinach Casserole." Page 28 has Hick's uncle making a "Surprise Casserole."

On the way to Dracula Hicks recalls the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre that happened 4 years before in Chicago in which 7 mobsters were brutally murdered by another gang. It's also mentioned one time before that alluding to the idea of strong resistance to the invocation of opening the heart. A historical character, Max Valentiner, comes into the picture in chapter 37 in relation to the backstory of the skipper of the freelance liberty submarine (resonant with Illuminatus!) that runs throughout the plot. Max Valentiner's name suggests maximum heart but something corrupted him as he torpedoed a boat full of civilians in WWI  – another example showing resistance to the day. Valentiner is also mentioned in Against the Day. Yet another image of trying to block Tiphareth occurs with the attempted murder of Hicks on Christmas Day.

* * * * * * *

Pynchon not only illustrates the rise of Fascism in this era, both political and personal, he suggests an underlying energetic cause for it, i.e. unbalanced and out of control male or yang energy. This theme carries over from Vineland. One moment of brilliance in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, loosely based on Vineland, blatantly connects this raw, male, destructive energy with the Brock Vond-like character the first time we see him. ST begins to emphasize the letter O in the paragraph before the section break on page 2 that bring's up Otto's Oasis and Oriental Drugs. Page 6 has the head of the detective agency, Boynt Crosstown giving the "O-O" to Skeet. That comes up again a little later. O-O stands for observation operation though we're not told that in the book. The letter O corresponds to The Devil in the Tarot, a symbol, in a less favorable aspect, for unbalanced male energy. Later, we hear about the real historical fact that immigrants were given a welcoming gift of Jell-O when being processed through Ellis Island. Pynchon adds something about a Jell-O mold in the shape of the Statue of Liberty and Hicks wonders where you would start eating it, the head? Head corresponds to the Sun therefore also with Tiphareth so eating the head of the symbol of immigration suggests eating the heart of immigrants which seems precisely aligned with the brutal mass deportation of immigrants currently going on.

The problem of Fascism is given, but we also find solutions for dealing with it on a personal level. How to cope when the world goes to Hell. Humor provides a solution. Like any TP book, ST has an abundance of jokes, some quite obvious, others very subtle. Charlie Chaplin gets mentioned the two times Hitler makes an appearance. W.C. Fields comes through a phone line in a non-sequitur on page 128. We find at least a couple of sly references to the Marx Brothers and the old vaudeville comedy team of Gallagher and Shean is mentioned. Al Shean was the uncle of the Marx Brothers and an early mentor and supporter. Music appears as another way to live through times of Fascism. We find an abundance of musical references and a few songs in the novel. The jazz band with Daphne's boyfriend lands in the camp of the fascist group known as the Vladboys and survive by playing music and entertaining them. The publishers even went so far as to release a playlist for ST – thank-you Bobby Campbell for that.

An initiated hermetic solution reveals itself in the central character's name,

Hicks McTaggart. H + M + T =54

54 = Thelema (Book of Lies ch. 54) = Will and love under Will.

Looking at his last name: Mc + Tag + g + art.

Mc = master of ceremonies; also = 48 = work hard (ch. 48 Book of Lies).

tag = to tag someone with a responsibility or get tagged with a responsibility. The example given in ST occurs when Hicks inadvertently gives Daphne a lift on his boat helping her escape from a psychiatric hospital. He delivers her to some Objibwe Native Americans. Daphne feels that Hicks saved her and mentions the Objibwe belief that if you interfere with someone's life you'll be responsible for them forever. Hicks has been tagged with saving the cheez princesses life when he's later given the ticket to find her and bring her home.

g = gimel = the path that runs across the abyss from Tiphareth to Kether; corresponds to the High Priestess (tarot). There's a joke made by Daphne to Hicks about "Abyssinia."

art = art in the normal sense of the word. Many artists feel tagged with the responsibility to create things. Playing music, painting, writing etc., doing anything creative as a way of coping and counteracting fascism.

art also = 210, a very significant number for mystical work. The two becomes one then the opposite polarities cancel to become nothing. We find this in Latin at the climax of the Star Sapphire ritual (Book of Lies ch. 36): "OMNIA IN DUOS: DUO IN UNUM: UNUS IN NIHIL.

Another Thelemic word or formula relating to art = 210 is ABRAHADABRA said to be the key to the new Aeon; it also represents the "Great Work completed. Abrahadabra has 11 letters. That number holds much significance in this School since 11 = Magick - energy tending to change. Also from The Book of the Law: "My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us" (I:60), spoken by Nuit, who represents the goddess archetype. The first phrase of chapter 11 in ST: "On days of low winter light . . ." = 210 affirming the connection between art = 210 and 11 and Abrahadadbra = the key to the new Aeon. In this cosmology the new Aeon is ruled by Horus, a god of war. Like the two in one idea, Horus has two aspects, Ra Hoor Kuit (male; energy projected out) and Hoor Pa Kraat (female; silence). Integrating the two provides balance and prepares for the next aeon that of Maat (female; Justice and hopefully peace).

The influence of Herman Melville on Pynchon has been established elsewhere. McTaggart sounds close to Claggart a character from Billy Budd, Sailor a novella by Melville. Billy Budd, the character, appears a model of the Rosicrucian ideal. In fact, the novella was found on Melville's desk after he died along with some poem fragments one of which was "The New Rosicrucians." Billy Budd was hired on as a foretopman on the ship the H.M.S. Indomitable where some of his fellow crew members called him Baby Budd because of his youth. Billy (William) Budd reversed = bud Will, a concept Crowley elaborated as part of the Initiate's development. John Claggart was the master of arms, i.e. chief law enforcement on the Indomitable. He falsely accused Billy Budd of fomenting mutiny; metaphorically illustrating resistance to the invocation or initiation. When confronted by this accusation in front of the Captain, Billy made the mistake of punching Claggart. The blow killed him leaving the Captain no choice but to have him executed. In that case, the resistance worked to stop the invocation as it does in many instances.

* * * * * *

A main theme of ST can be summed up as Pass It On. Skeet Wheeler, the kid who enters near the beginning and closes the story wants to be Hicks's apprentice. Lew Basnight mentors Hicks. Page 26 has a paragraph about musicians that ends with a hopeful kid waiting in back of the veteran musicians for his turn in the spotlight. In chapter 10 at the Nazi bowling alley, Hicks runs into Ooly Shaufel, a guard there. Ooly was Hicks's mentor when they both were strikebreakers. Page 69 has an exchange where Hicks asks his Uncle Lefty if what he's saying has anything to do with Al Capone, called the "Big Guy" here. Lefty replies, "I hear things. Sometimes I pass it on, sometimes I don't." This foreshadows the ending where Bruno wishes to pass on the secrets of the International Cheese Syndicate to Daphne; we're getting to that. Passing it on definitely seems like something an elderly author who has a great deal of arcane and esoteric information would hope to do.

* * * * * *

In 2007 E.J. Gold asked me to make a copy of a cd featuring old recordings of Aleister Crowley's voice. He told me not label it with Crowleys name, but rather use the name "Big Al" so it wouldn't be obvious who it featured. Then he gave me an enigmatic look. At the time, this seemed ridiculous, to me. Upon first reading Shadow Ticket I was stunned to see "Big Al" in the second sentence and immediately remembered the "Big Al" cd. I thought Gold could have remote viewed across time and that Pynchon connected Big Al with Crowley. Apart from using Capone's initials, AC once, I saw nothing to support this supposition until nearly the end of the book in chapter 37 when Bruno Airmont, the Al Capone of Cheez, wishes to pass on his fortune and other things to his daughter and heir Daphne Airmont. Daphne says she doesn't want his money but he says he wants to pass on everything he knows about the International Cheese Syndicate which he abbreviates InChSyn. I + Ch + S = 78 which corresponds to many things in the Sepher Sephiroth including: the Tarot; the Angel of Ra Hoor Khuit; and "to initiate." 78 is prefigured much earlier in the book on page 26 with the name checking of "Count" Basie. Pynchon puts those quotation marks around Count like usually never done except when referring to his full name, William James "Count" Basie. When a Qabalah teacher emphasizes the word "count" it can mean to add up and pay attention to Gematria ahead. Adding "Basie" gives us 78. Basie suggests base.

 

I postulate that Thelema provides a solution to Fascism with its projection of love under will facilitated by an activated emotional centrum and connected to 210 and Abrahadabra.  Whether one goes all mystical or not Thelema on its most basic level appears a philosophy and practice that advocates personal liberty.

InChSyn suggests inches and syn an allusion to the male problem. It can also be seen as IC (I see) Syndicate (sin + dick + ate = eating up the problem). And I + CS. CS indicates an active function connected to 210 and Abrahadabra. Practicing this function expands one's more subtle morphology, one's being, as it were. So the idea of calling Crowley Big Al has some veracity. Capone is called Large Alphonse on p. 93.

It also occurred to me that Big Al could refer to Liber Al vel Legis, The Book of the Law. Chapter 3 starts with: "Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut" (3:1). The short sequence with Hicks and his new girlfriend Terike near the end reminds me of verse I:62: "I am uplifted in they heart and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon the body." I was also reminded of the Abbey of Thelema with a couple of references to Palermo near the beginning, the name of the closest city to the Abbey in Sicily located in the village of Cefalu. In chapter 38 following the reveal in 37, a character named Chazz gets recruited into an "anti-Fascist guerilla force" in Sicily. Thelema could also be called an anti-Fascist force.

Back in chapter 37 (37 = Jechidah, the highest unity of the soul) Bruno Airmont (Bruno suggests Giordano Bruno, a spiritual predecessor of Aleister Crowley) tells Daphne that he has enough dirt on InChSyn "to send the whole business up in one giant fondoozical cataclysm."

fondoozical = fondo (found) + oz + ic (I see) + al (Crowley or Liber Al vel Legis).

oz likely refers to Liber Oz, a one page document aka the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" or as Robert Anton Wilson and I put it, the Rights of WoMan, after Leary. In Britain's darkest hour during WWII when it looked like the Nazis might take the island Crowley wrote Liber Oz and sent it to every dignitary he had an address for as a magical gesture against Facism. Coincidentally, 10 days after he sent them out the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor bringing the U.S. into the war eventually turning the tide. Shea and Wilson put Liber Oz in Illuminatus!

To be continued . . .