as a whole; a novel where the world is not just a neutral background for the actions of the characters, but an explicit presence – more of an actor than a landscape. Even though the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and Pynchon’s novel are both shaped by an ambition to represent a global space, they naturally express different worldviews. With its gleaming white buildings, the Chicago World’s Fair was first and foremost conceived as a showcase for the brave new world of modernity. The exposition was in many ways an incarnation of the optimistic view of scientific progress that characterized the United States at the brink of a new century, and the many electrical wonders on show in the White City drew an idealized picture of an enlightened societyonly in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor. (10) The striking passage establishes a number of contrasts between the sunny fictions of the White City and the murky realities of the slaughterhouse, between the unbounded freedom of nature and the rationalized meat industry of the city. The rosy view of futurity expressed in brochures from the fair is not left unchallenged in Pynchon’s novel, which mercilessly exposes the dark side of modernity. The technological progress which from one perspective can be considered as a significant increase of civilization’s possibilities and as an improvement of the conditions of life, can from another perspective be construed as a no less significant