" . . . some rare authors, such as Dante and Chaucer, share Virgil's comprehensive vision and arrive at the richest idea of the development of the labyrinth by blending labyrinthine fact and fiction, structure and story, objective pattern and subjective fact."
– The Idea of the Labyrinth, by Penelope Reed Doob
Illustration of the mythical labyrinth in Crete
Thomas Pynchon's works form a maze or labyrinth for the reader to solve, some more labyrinthine than others; not a new idea in his secondary literature. David Seed wrote The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon (1988) that apparently explores the subject (I haven't read it). Others have made the same comparison of his writings to a labyrinth. Gravity's Rainbow seems inordinately puzzling just trying understand what goes on in the various scenes. Writers that have strongly influenced TP wrote labyrinthine classics: Joyce, Burroughs, Borges, Wilson, for instance. Nietzsche wrote about the inner life and deep self as a labyrinth with its various complex layers and depths to be explored. The prototype for the labyrinth model comes from the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. The solution in this myth lies in following Ariadne's thread through it. Some interpretations of Nietzsche suggest that his concept, "will to power" can serve as thread through the maze of life. This doesn't mean a will to have power over anything else other than yourself; it means the will to do, to act rather than react; closely related, perhaps synonymous with Big Al's "do what thou wilt."
Shadow Ticket has many puzzling, maze-like aspects, but also a clear thread in Hicks McTaggert whose initials in Gematria = 54 = Thelema = Will. Attempting to thread the labyrinth of this text reflexively puts the interested reader in a proactive position of having to fully engage with solving the puzzle.
Every detective story seems like a puzzle to solve. The last post suggests that the reader play the part of a detective, with the assignment or ticket being the Shadow. When Hicks is given his ticket to locate Daphne Airmont his boss asks him "what's this expression on your face?" and he answers "Close attention, I think" (p. 4); perhaps a clue to pay close attention to the information given. The idea this book may be coded gets alluded to with a twist on a real historical character, Gleb Bokii portrayed here as Stalin's "chief cryptology genius" (p. 167). The real Gleb Bokii (1879 - 1937) was a Soviet revolutionary and a paranormal investigator.
The subject of Death recurs in Shadow Ticket. Investigating the shadow appears synonymous with attempting to solve the maze of the underworld. "An underworld where the dead live in shadow was common to beliefs in the ancient Near East" (Wikipedia). The most well known example from the Bible appears in the 4th line of Psalm 23: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Pynchon's twist on this comes with the character of Daphne Airmont, the cheez princess. Daphne = 145 = "The Staff of GOD." The simplest way to describe the plot of Shadow Ticket: rescue the princess. The rod and staff suggests the phallic magick wand = WILL. Blending a phallic image with a principle female character appears suggestive of a solution to the unbalanced male energy spoken of earlier.
The Divine Comedy by Dante provides a foundational pillar in the canon of Western and Near Eastern literature. It poetically describes a journey through death and the underworld. The influence of this opus on modern and postmodern writers has been profound. You'll find it in James Joyce (Finnegans Wake), Ezra Pound (The Cantos), Robert Anton Wilson (Illuminatus! and others), Malcolm Lowery (Under the Volcano) to name a few.
Shadow Ticket shows some parallels with The Divine Comedy. In the final chapter Hicks realizes he's not going back to Milwaukee, his girlfriend has married a gangster, Don Peppino Infernacci. This suggests Inferno, the first book of The Divine Comedy. Hicks laments that he doesn't know the language here, but then "Terike zooms in," a new romantic interest, offering to teach him starting with the Hungarian word for tomato, paradicsom, recalling the third book of The Divine Comedy, Paradisio, with Terike playing the role of Beatrice, Dante's former love and guide there. Analysis of "tomato" supports that: to + ma + to; ma = the Mother archetype; the first "to" could mean he's going to her as Dante did with Beatrice; the second "to" = 79 = "Conjunction, meeting, union" Dante's Paradisio culminates with the union of the human will with Divine will; one interpretation of Crowley's "Do what thou wilt."
Shadow Ticket begins with imagery reminiscent of a contemporary Inferno. A loud explosion occurs on page 1. Flashing back to Hicks's time as a strikebreaker we find him regularly getting into violent skirmishes; in one instance he almost kills someone. We first hear about Don Peppino Infernacci described as "a lord of the underworld." The transition from Inferno to Purgatorio occurs gradually in Shadow Ticket as it also does in The Divine Comedy. I would place the beginning of it when Hicks leaves April at Union Station in Chicago to take the train to New York.
Purgatorio "Canto XII" has the lines:
"How different were these entryways from those
of Hell! For here it is with song one enters;
down there, it is with savage lamentations."
On the train to New York, a porter, McKinley Gibbs, brings a stack of records for sale and a Victrola. Gibbs gives Hicks a disc without a label which turns out to have April singing. He heard April singing it live before but never on a record. Hicks listens to it a few times then falls asleep. The lyrics are in the book (p. 124 - 125). When he wakes up, he looks for the porter, but no one has ever heard of him. He seems to have been a phantom. I suggest that this song marks his entry into the Purgatory section which goes for most of the rest of the novel. In the first Canto of Purgatorio Dante conceives of it as a journey to freedom and liberty which I see as a subtext of Shadow Ticket. Another interpretation of this territory holds it to be partially an allegory for the training of the will in this life.
Shades is the term Dante calls the souls of the deceased. He also frequently refers to them as ombra, Italian for shadow. We see a reference to a dead Italian on the first page of Shadow Ticket. Chapter 2 has "IMOPIO job, no question." IMOPIO stands for "Infernal Machine Of Presumed Italian Origin."
Hicks gets confronted with death in his previous job as a strikebreaker when he gets so mad at someone that he reaches for the weapon in his pocket to throttle the guy and finds it inexplicably gone. He realizes he would have killed him had not some supernatural agency temporarily removed the weapon. This event profoundly changes his life leading him to change course and get a job as a detective. The shock of being confronted with death by nearly killing someone proves transformational.
Last post I brought up the Death tarot card in chapter 13 when Bruno thinks about it. The implication is that he's knocking off rivals in the cheez industry. Two chapters later, 15, starts with Hicks having a sense that he's targeted. This is the Christmas Day chapter where he gets a deadly gift. On the Stupendica ocean liner in chapter 20 it seems Hicks gets killed, but he doesn't, a trick on the reader. Later, when the action shifts to Hungary we see a short bit about "Death's penis" an image that ties in with the aggressively male energy brought up last post with Fascism. There seems nothing more fascist than killing someone solely because the murderer has aggressive dick energy. Down the line, in Vladboy (fascist) territory in Hungary we see a sign on a club that translates to Wall of Death.
Stuffy Keegan is the fellow whose truck got bombed at the top of the story. It seems he escaped the blast, but it's left ambiguous. "Maybe I'm a ghost now and I'm haunting you" (p. 57). He ends up going aboard an old WWI submarine that seems equally mysterious. The sub appears able to travel across parallel worlds at the end of the story. That sub is known as U-13. As mentioned earlier, 13 is the key number for Nun (Hebrew) and all its correspondences which include the Death card. U-13 = you dead.
Nun means "fish." In Kabbalah, nun/fish symbolizes "heir to the throne" among other things. In medieval texts a final nun (last letter) was used as an abbreviation for "son of." The final phrase of the first paragraph in the book reads" "where it seldom gets more serious than somebody stole somebody's fish." Looking at it through the Kabbalah lens it becomes ". . . somebody stole somebody's heir." This encapsulates the plot though Pynchon has reversed the gender and made her an heiress. Vineland begins with Zoyd Wheeler, the son of Skeet Wheeler, having to reverse his gender by dressing in drag in order to collect his benefits.
* * * * * *
To be in the world but not of it describes a Sufi maxim that appears to apply to a subtextual directive proscribing a way of action in Shadow Ticket. I hazard to say that the hermetic/mystical coding found herein does not intend to teach a path toward personal enlightenment, but rather to a way of service intended to make the world a better place. In Qabalistic terms, in this instance we don't climb the Tree of Life to ascend to the lofty immaterial realm of Kether and hang out there, but rather to learn a transformational function that brings the life force and vitality of Kether down to the material world of Malkuth. We aren't "another one of those metaphysical detectives, out looking for Revelation" as Lew Basnight puts it in chapter 6.
Two names in the story serve to illustrate this perspective. I'll discuss Bruno's formerly right hand man and fixer, Ace Lomax first. Ace naturally suggests the Aces in the tarot especially since we find tarot encounters in the book. Lomax = Low (Malkuth) + maximum. Lon Milo Duquette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot provides an excellent description of the aces. Crowley says the aces aren't the four elements themselves, but rather the seeds of the elements comparing that to Kether and its relationship to the manifestation of the rest of the Tree. Duquette writes that all the lesser arcana (Court and small cards) of the Tarot live inside each of the aces's respective suit. He connects the seed quality of aces with subatomic particles that "aren't matter at all, but can only be described as nonmaterial 'tendencies'" (UACTT, p, 163). I hope you enjoy the qabalistic pun with Malkuth-10.
Crowley writes that the aces form a link between the Princesses and the small cards. The Princesses correspond with Earth. Bruno Airmont attempts to rehire Ace Lomax at the end of the novel offering him a top position in his enterprise. He also teases him with the prospect of becoming romantically involved with his daughter, Daphne, the cheez princess. Lomax turns him down. He gets many other job offers the last one being to escort Jews to safety from the fascists. Ace expresses guilt over antisemitic actions he's taken previously; this new job reverses that giving him a chance to expiate his past. This connects with the territory of Purgatory and the theme of Liberty for the Jews he rescues. Ace Lomax's initials = AL as in Big AL or Liber Al.
The second name illustrating the idea of vitalizing the material world: Bela Lugosi.
Lugosi can break down to: low (Malkuth) + go + see. Bela Lugosi was Hungarian. Much of the second part of the book occurs in Hungary. In old Hungarian Bela = heart or insides. Bela Lugosi = heart low go see.
The nature of producing this elan vital (Bergson) or what Gilles Deleuze calls "sense" can be found in the Crowley material herein. Previously we saw Bruno pass on the inner secrets of the International Cheese Syndicate (= 78 = the Tarot = to initiate = Ra Hoor Khuit, etc. etc. see Sepher Sephiroth). Like elan vital we find that cheese is alive: "'Cheese, oh to be sure, cheese is alive. Self aware, actually, maybe not exactly the way we are, but still more than some clever simulation. We're at a pivot point here in the history of food science, a strange new form of life that was deliberately invented like Dr. Frankenstein or something –'" (ST p.83)
Note the "c + s" combination which relates both to elan vital and food science. The story of Frankenstein can represent an alchemical allegory for self-actualization in the higher dimensions. Another contemporary iteration of that allegory comes in the form of Bob Dylan's "My Own Version of You" from Rough and Rowdy Ways:
"I'll take a Scarface Pacino and a Godfather Brando
Mix it up in a tank and get a robot commando
If I do it up right and put the head on straight
I'll be saved by the creature I create."
Bruno Airmont, the Al Capone of Cheez, passes on his esoteric secrets to his daughter Daphne in chapter 37. Another allusion to passing on Big Al's (Aleister Crowley) material comes from Skeet Wheeler. Skeet, who wishes to become an apprentice detective idolizes Al Capone. He carries a photo of him in his wallet with the inscription. "To my old goombah Skeet, who taught me everything I know, regards and tanti auguri (happy birthday in Italian), always, Al" (p. 7). Another reversal here with the teacher (Big Al) learning everything from the apprentice (Skeet). The book ends with a letter to Hicks telling him he's moving to California simply signed "Skeet," the last word in the book.
Skeet = 99 = "The pangs of childbirth" (as in happy birthday);
"The Vault of Heaven; an inner chamber; wedlock; nupital."
We may assume that Skeet gets married to his new girl Zin as it seems their child is Zoyd Wheeler from Vineland - also connecting with childbirth.
Also 99 = "Clay of Death, Infernal Abode of Geburah;
Cognition, knowledge"
Skeet's name qabalistically connects with both Inferno and Paradisio.
Daphne's name also connects with Paradisio. In Greek mythology Daphne was pursued aggressively by Apollo. She prayed for help to her father, the river god Peneus who transformed her into a laurel tree to escape his erotic advances. Apollo designated the laurel his sacred tree. This myth is referred to twice in Paradisio Canto I. Daphne has since come to represent victory, honor, achievement and immortality. Victors were crowned with a laurel wreath in the ancient Olympics; see also poet laureate.
* * * * * *
The clearest influence of James Joyce that I see comes from the circular nature of subjects at the end of the book matching those at the top. The book starts and ends with mention of the railroad which gets associated with trouble at the top; happiness and the promise of new life at the end. A phrase on page 2: "happiness twins are back on the train again" suggests the happy couple, Skeet and Zin about to board the train at the very end. The explosion on page 1 gets referenced on the last page.
Something else at both the end and beginning of the novel is the word "breeze" – "breeze machine" at the end, "comes breezing up here to Milwaukee" in the first paragraph. Both are slang for traveling in these contexts. Breeze or a variation thereof easily appears one of the most frequently used verbs in the book coming with inordinate frequency. I don't know the significance of this, if any. It does remind me of his alternate spelling for cheese - cheez, which also sees frequent use.
A cryptographer looking for patterns would notice that "breeze" and "cheez" have the letter sequence "eez" in common; eez = 17 = The Star (tarot). Perhaps this quote from Purgatorio Canto XVII appears mere coincidence:
"So said my guide; and toward a stairway, he
and I together turned; and just as soon
as I was at the first step, I sensed something
much like the motion of a wing, and wind
that beat against my face, and words 'Beati
pacifica, those free of evil anger!'
Above us now the final rays before
the fall of night were raised to such a height
that we could see the stars on every side."
This quote shows Dante feeling a breeze possibly from a bird or Angel just before the shadow of the Earth brings night with the stars becoming visible. Beati pacifica refers to the a Bible phrase" "Blessed are the peacemakers." Duquette writes: "Traditionally the Star is the card of hope – the promise of things unseen" (UACTT p. 145).
Purgatorio Canto XXVIII connects breeze with hope:
"A gentle breeze, which did not seem to vary
within itself, was striking at my brow
but with no greater force than a kind wind's,
a wind that made the trembling boughs – they all
bent eagerly – incline in the direction
of morning shadows from the holy mountain;
but they were not deflected with such force
as to disturb the little birds upon
the branches in the practice of their arts;
for to the leaves, with song, birds welcomed those
first hours of the morning joyously,
and leaves supplied the burden to their rhymes –"
A gentle breeze, "which did not seem to vary within itself" suggests Will. Birds practicing their arts suggests Magick. It also recalls the Sufi classic, The Conference of the Birds. Joyce used "leaves" as a pun to symbolize death (as in leaves the body) in Finnegans Wake.
This breeze comes comes near the beginning of the Canto (line 7), a canto that marks an inflection point as Dante nears the end of his journey through Purgatorio and prepares to transition into Paradisio. This canto introduces the poet to the Garden Eden aka the Earthly Paradise.
I don't know if TP intended this association with the multiplicity of "breeze," but it does appear to fit with the project of attempting to make our world a little less inferno-like and more of a paradise. Or perhaps to focus and tune our perceptions in that direction. The postulate of Shadow Ticket as a magick grimoire, an agent of change, would have the Invocation go beyond the author's conscious intentions. In other words, this reading appears valid whether Pynchon meant it or not.
The next installment includes a Deleuzean perspective of Shadow Ticket. Stay tuned for Part III.
