V.V.(2) "persistence of vision" (38.17)

[jbor]

OK. So the phrase refers to the trompe l'oeil which enables film frames to
simulate motion. In the novel it isn't a film which Benny wakes to but the
sight of the three Puerto Rican boys in the train carriage, and Jose's arms
and hands playing on his tin drum are "vibrating out beyond the persistence
of vision". Does this mean they are moving too quickly for Profane to see
them move? So, isn't the reference in the text being applied to what the eye
is doing (i.e in relation to perception), rather than to what a film
projector does? the limitation of human bio-mechanics so disclosed rather
than the technological artifice which discloses it? It resonates with the
line on the next page describing Benny's dream:

     Walking on a street at night where there was nothing but his own
     field of vision alive. (39.28)

The human "field of vision", at any given moment, is also limited to a
particular finite frame and is dependent on direction and orientation, and
focus too I suppose.

The two references fit neatly into the characterisation of Benny thus far.
Profane is phenomenological man: he just exists, drifting from moment to
moment (cf. Slothrop's narrowing "temporal bandwidth" in GR), passively
experiencing sensations as they occur. I rather suspect that with these
references Pynchon is pointing to the inexorable subjectivity and
fallibility of human perception, which might have something to do with
Joyce's "ineluctable modality of the visible" after all (except I'm not
quite sure what that means, or whether it refers to the act of perception or
the "act" of being perceived). Anyway, thanks for your responses.

best


----------
>From: "Andrew Foley" <anfoley at ibm.net>
>To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: "persistence of vision"
>Date: Sat, Oct 21, 2000, 9:46 PM

snip

> A film frame is only projected three times on a projector with a three-plane
> shutter.  Many projectors use a two-plane shutter, which only shows each
> frame twice.  A projectionist I consulted about this says that the light
> levels are very slightly lower with a three-plane shutter.  The only
> disadvantage with a two-plane shutter is that it causes a visible strobing
> flicker when the projector is set at 16 or 18 frames per second for silent
> films; this is right on the borderline of persistence of vision, and the
> switch between frames becomes very marginally visible.
>
>