M & D sources/clocks

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Thanks forthe reminder about the empty lines, Murthy!

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Yes, TRP seems to absorb his souces, digest them?  Osmosicize?  Whatever, one of the 
early critcal consensuses (consensii?) about his work is its uncanny ability to persuade
 readers that the author--must--have first hand knowledge of the situations he describes,
 even when this is clearly impossible (like knowledge of 19th c. Malta, etc, etc,).  It's 
Imagination such as even Coleridge wouldda envied, IMO.  So it may be *close to the 
surface* when we see a connect like the Sobel talking clock.  But it's organically rooted, a 
signature of style, at the same time. I think of it as his collage technique where things are 
literally picked up from odd corners and transformed while remaining recognizably what
 they were.

 davemarc as usual adds a new dimension to the thought of sources--I din't know there 
was a horological tradition of the talking clock.  Can you point me to any other instance?  I
 guess you must be correct for the further reeason that such a tradition would explain how
 Sobel, otherwise a pretty banal writer IMO, came up with such a good metaphor (failing, 
as usual these days with so many writers, to give credit to the source).

john m
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Peter G. writes:
<snip>
 It might
>have something
>to do with the process of research for TRP - He makes the material his own
>and intellectually
>and artistically processes it but because he is literally jumping from text
>to text perhaps
>the source is close to the surface - (please don't think that I am suggesting
>plagarism)

davemarc writes:
> 
>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.