Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Against the Blog: 3-18

Man, I was getting sort of quasi-caught-up, but now I've stepped up my reading pace because I want to write about the novel for a class, so now I'm way behind again. I've read up to page eight hundred; we're only at 678 with Against the Blog. Ah well. Qu'est qu'on peut faire?

This section is back in England. Lew, Nigel, and Neville are at a jolly musical about Jack the Ripper. Professor Renfrew is there as well. Lew encounters Max Khäutsch, who, you might remember if you read these entries over and over really, really obsessively, was the bodyguard who helped Lew mind the Archduke Ferdinand waaaaaaay back. Now he's a colonel. What is he doing here? He's guarding Renfrew's counterpart and rival, the German Werfner, who also happens to be in town.

Later on, Lew has twin epiphanies: first, that Nigel and Neville are, in fact, only pretending to be buffoonish fops; and second, that Renfrew and Werfner are, like, totally the same person. So he goes and does research on bilocation and whatnot to try to figure this shit out. He ends up chatting with a Swiss "alienist," who puts forth the theory that Renfrew/Werner is acting out some inner contradiction by being two different people representing countries with opposing interests.

The Grand Cohen (Nickolas Nookshaft! No, I will never cease to find this name amusing) had suggested to Lew, in an oblique way, that maybe it wouldn't be totally bad if something bad happened to RenWer. But, he doesn't. He DOES wonder how much of all this crazy shit has happened to him, and how much to some bilocated version of himself.

After visiting Renfrew, he catches a brief glimpse of the nefarious Gentleman Bomber, but he gets away. Is Lew the Gentleman Bomber also? Anyway, he decides to quit this TWIT lark and set up his own thing.

...et section le troisième, elle est finis!

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