List of episodes in Against the Day
The following is a list of episodes in Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day.
One: The Light Over the Ranges
Episode 1
The Chums of Chance, the five-member crew of the hydrogen skyship Inconvenience, sails for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Compromising the crew is Randolph St. Cosmo, the ship commander; Darby Suckling, the "baby" of the crew who serves as both factotum and mascot; Lindsay Noseworth, second-in-command and Master-at-Arms; Miles Blundell, the Handyman Apprentice; and Chick Counterfly, the newest member of the crew. Also present is Pugnax, a literate dog of no particular breed who is reading a book on the rise of World Anarchism.
Episode 2
The Chums arrive at the Fair, after having almost crashed on landing.
Episode 3
Lindsay and Miles enter the World's Fair through an alternative gate and are immediately confronted by the spectacle of unsavory acts and exhibits on the fringe of the Fair. Miles, in an act of divination, wins ten dollars at a game of three-card monte.
Meanwhile, Randolph St. Cosmo agrees to contract the services of the Chums of Chance and the Inconvenience to the White City Detectives for the purposes of surveillance.
Episode 4
The Chums meet a photographer (Merle Rideout) and his fully attired model (Chevrolette McAdoo), which seemed to have just stepped out of a ladies' magazine. The Chums also meet prof. Vanderjuice, which we'll be seen bargaining with evil forces, that is widely celebrated mogul Scarsdale Vibe. On Vibe's way to the lobby,
an elderly woman, respectably though not sumptuously dressed, approached him, crying, "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle."
Episode 5
Lew Basnight, who wasn't sure what anarchist are, is recruited by the Chums.
Episode 6
Episode 7
Webb Traverse is introduced by meeting with Merle. They discuss of the equivalent of the Philosopher's Stone for explosives.
Episode 8
Webb and his Finnish pal Veikko set to blow up a railway. Webb recalls that Veikko didn't see much difference between the Russian Tsar's regime and American capitalism.
Episode 9
Episode 10
Now 1899, the Chums receive a telephone call with instructions to head southwest and await course correction via the airship's new Tesla device (or radio). The Inconvenience sails over several unknown and sparsely populated islands, where work details can be observed from the deck, until finally setting down on an island called St. Masque, the last island where they could take on perishable supplies. The Chums receive their assignment from extended radio communiques, arriving at a volcano antipodal to Colorado Springs, to observe what would happen there during Dr. Tesla's experiments in Colorado. Waiting for the experiment, the Chums begin a quarrelsome debate over what the replacement figurehead should be (having lost their previous one of President McKinley's head in a collision with a Chicago skyscraper). On the eve of the Fourth of July the Chums are treated to a mandatory fireworks display, after which Tesla's experiment commences. After the boys make their observations, they get ready to leave, resolving the figurehead dispute in the meantime, finally settling on a "draped female personage, perhaps more maternal than [...]." Noseworth reminds them that they should all learn a lesson from the dispute, namely to develop protocols against secularity.
The Upper Hierarchy sends a new assignment to the Chums through a "Special Japanese Oyster" (which uses crystals of Iceland spar to separate rays of light into "ordinary" and "extraordinary" beams). The message told them to intercept the schooner Étinne-Louis Malus and attempt to persuade its commander to abandon the expedition. To reach the ship quickly, the Chums traverse the hollow Earth, entering into a portal in Antarctica. While nearing the Northern exit point, they receive a distress signal from the indigenous population, claiming to be under attack by a horde of hostile gnomes. The Chums help fight against the Legion of Gnomes and narrowly escape through the ever-shrinking Northern portal.
Two: Iceland Spar
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
See also
- List of episodes in Gravity's Rainbow