I thought that Randy's email to his partners was hilarious, besides being informative (pages 525-528 deal directly with the gold). I thought it was interesting that he anticipated all of these issues and problems and came up with several plans from the point of view of the "questioner," but then still couldn't find a way to get the gold out of the jungle in a sufficient manner. It was also interesting that there is SO much gold just sitting there in the jungle, and that some old lady happened to tell Randy about it. How has it stayed there for so long? I suppose that the transportation issues are the major reason. I'm not sure if i understand the significance of this gold, but it definitely relates to the gold on the U-boats in the past, right? Or maybe not . . .
I cannot believe you liked this section! I mean, it definitely was funny, but I cannot stand when books change fonts like that right in the middle and go on and on that way. I found it really irritating. But obsessive criticism aside, this passage was very helpful and informative. I thought the gold related to the German U Boats and how they were carrying gold... but I guess we are not really sure, yet.
I think it's really funny how both Randy and Lawrence can only think of things in math terms. It's as if they have to break English down into something that they can understand. They have to decrypt it. Lawrence is breaking codes in Australia but finds that his horniness is impeding his productivity. So, he goes on trying to explain the correlation between his horniness, time since last ejaculation, ability to break codes, and his new factor, proximity to Mary Smith. In the same way, Randy describes this whole gold scenario that you guys are talking about above by describing how much they have traveled in terms of LAC's, meaning one Lewis and Clark day. Which Randy has decided is a "convenient unit of distance, danger, perspirational weight loss, poor sphincter control, wishing you were at home, exasperation, and emotional toll.." (page 520).
Gold IS everywhere in this book! On the U-Boat (mentioning the gold saves Bobby and changes the entire plan of the german) and Goto Dengo uses his gold pan-handling skills to be friends with the savages. wow!
I hope this pans out in the end, because all this gold can't just be a coinsidence. I don't understand it's meaning yet, though.
In spite of the rather drawn out nature of the description I thought it was pretty funny that they went through all the pain they did just to get out in the middle of a jungle to find of all things an absolutely worthless pile of gold. I thought it odd that while the gold has all the physical limitations attached to it which render it relatively worthless, the incident in a way inspires Randy to think about backing their new currency with gold???