M&D ca. p 100--source?

[doktor at primenet.com]

John M. reminds of us the conversation between the clocks in M&D and
wonders if this was inspired by a passage in Dava Sobel's Longitude.

Mabe.

But it reminded me more of the clock in Dr. Shoenmaker's waiting room and
of other chronometrical anthropomorphism in V.:

"Directly across from Rachel was a mirror, hung high on the wall, and under
the mirror a shelf which held a turn-of-the-century clock.  The double face
was suspended by four golden flying buttresses above a maze of works,
enclosed in clear Swedish lead glass.  The pendulum didn't swing back and
forth but was in the form of a disc, parallel to the floor and driven by a
shaft which paralleled the hands at six o'clock.  The disc turned a
quarter-revolution one way, then a quarter-revolution the other, each
reversed torsion on the shaft advancing the escapement a notch.  Mounted on
the disc were two imps or demons, wrought in gold, posed in fantastic
attitudes.  Their movements were reflected in the mirror along with the
window at Rachel's back, which extended from floor to ceiling . . . ."(pp.
35 - 36)

* * * *

"Beneath the mirror, two golden imps in a clock danced the same
unsyncopated tango they'd always danced." (p. 84)

* * * *

"The party, as if it were inanimate after all, unwound like a clock's
mainspring toward the edges of the chocolate room, seeking some easing of
its own tension, some equilibrium." (p. 41)

Elsewhere in V., there is a passage comparing the ticking of a clock to a
beating heart (metronome's music?) that must one day be stilled.  So way
before Sobel, Pynchonian clocks danced, partied, got tense (wound up?),
were threatening (demons) and mischevious (imps).  They were also perceived
in V. as being gateways to what Pynchon called mirror time.  From this it
is only a short hop to talking.

--Jimmy