The Cherrycoke narrative shifts internally from one point of view to another, often relating events from the view of people Cherrycoke has never met. Rather than a mistake or flaw on Pynchon's part, this narrative structure is constructed to be inexact in a (perhaps paradoxically) precise fashion it demonstrates the fragility, rather than the secure foundations, of any historical record, and indeed, history itself.
Pynchon provides an intricate conspiracy theory involving Jesuits and their Chinese converts, which may or may not be occurring within the nested and ultimately inexact narrative structure. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Nevil Maskelyne, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Jefferson, and John Harrison's marine chronometer all make appearances. The novel also contains philosophical discussions and parables of automata/robots, the afterlife, slavery, feng shui and others.
The novel's scope takes in aspects of established Colonial American history including the call of the West, the often ignored histories of women, Native Americans, and slaves, plus excursions into geomancy, Deism, a hollow Earth, and - perhaps - alien abduction.
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