M&D ca. p 100--source?

[davemarc]

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> From: MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu
> 
> Can't remember the exact page, but the little conversation between the
clocks onboard 
> ship--is it just before Dixon leaves St. Helena?
> Reading Dava Sobel's LONGITUDE this morning I find:
> Cornered, Harrison led Maskelyne into the room where he kept the clocks,
> which had been his close companions for thirty years.  They were all
running,
> each in its own characteristic way, like a gathering of old friends in
animated conversation 
> (p. 136)
> 
> Though, as the passage above reveals, Sobel has a tin ear and a poor
grasp of sentence 
> structure, yet perhaps this little trope was inspiring of the fleshed out
idea in M & D?  At 
> any rate, seems a good sign that Sobel's LONGITUDE (copyright 1995) was a
source.  Date 
> of pub. might give some good textual scholar someday a hook on TRP's
method of 
> composition?
> 
It struck me that there were similarities between Sobel and Pynchon, but I
think the ur-source is horology-talk.  It appears to be common for
horologists to personify clocks.

davemarc