MDMD2: 20/20 vision in the Age of Reason

[Paul Nightingale]

Interesting stuff on the telescope from Dave Monroe. It emphasises the scale
of the technological achievement. The perfectibility of vision -something we
might henceforth aspire to - is also an important theme, given the
difficulty of seeing and recording accurately what one has seen; elsewhere,
the narrative will deny the possibility of objectivity. In Ch2, the
reference to telescopes, in Mason's letter, follows his confessed
ambivalence about the proposed relationship with Dixon. Hence the
business-chat is designed to disguise his true feelings ("What do I say to
him?"). There is also a reminder, in the final extracts from Damuas, that
scientific inquiry is inseparable from politics. Pynchon doesn't do research
for the sake of it.