Fescue--another brilliant sliding metaphor?

[Mark Kohut]

David---
   
  I just posted to the M & D wiki this probable meaning to the last use of Fescue in M & D,...another incredible extended sliding metaphor, imho, from our genius poet-writer...
   
    Fescue here seems to be another brilliant extended metaphor from our author. A fescue, a pointer--a rod--seems to mean the rods (of rods and cones) that comprise our eyes! The retina contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. The rods are more numerous, some 120 million, and are more sensitive than the cones. However, they are not sensitive to color.
This sensitivity only to white in rods makes the rest of the image work.

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  I realize that I am about 6 months late, Toby, but you expressed some doubt about the definition of "fescue."
   
  From the on-line OED, def. 2: "a small stick, pin, etc. used for pointing out the letters to children learning to read; a pointer."
   
  I have found "fescue" on 3 pages. This definition works well in the context of page 336 ("Picking up a Fescue, she [Tenebrae] leans toward the Map upon the Wall 
 ‘King Charles begins 
 here’ ") and page 92 (" ‘Now then,’ Mason rapping upon the table’s Edge with a sinister looking Fescue of Ebony, whose List of Uses simple Indication does not quite exhaust, whilst the Girls squirm pleasingly").
   
  But I am puzzled by Pynchon’s (Wick’s?) usage on page 93: 
   
  "
jaunty little Chins and slender Necks, posing and reposing, blond girls laughing together, growing sticky and malapert. The Girls are taken on a short but dizzying journey, straight up, into the Æther, until there beside them in the grayish Starlight is the ancient, gravid Earth, the Fescue become a widthless Wand of Light, striking upon it brilliantly white-hot Arcs. 
   
  ‘Parallax.’ "
   
  Surely more than just poetic license to create a “climax” for the chapter? Perhaps the light reflects oddly on the “Fescue of Ebony,” which shines white, forming white Arcs as it is moved about, pointing to Venus? Have I started to clear the waters, only to re-muddy them?
   
   
   
   
   
   
  I realize that I am about 6 months late, Toby, but you expressed some doubt about the definition of "fescue."
   
  From the on-line OED, def. 2: "a small stick, pin, etc. used for pointing out the letters to children learning to read; a pointer."
   
  I have found "fescue" on 3 pages. This definition works well in the context of page 336 ("Picking up a Fescue, she [Tenebrae] leans toward the Map upon the Wall 
 ‘King Charles begins 
 here’ ") and page 92 (" ‘Now then,’ Mason rapping upon the table’s Edge with a sinister looking Fescue of Ebony, whose List of Uses simple Indication does not quite exhaust, whilst the Girls squirm pleasingly").
   
  But I am puzzled by Pynchon’s (Wick’s?) usage on page 93: 
   
  "
jaunty little Chins and slender Necks, posing and reposing, blond girls laughing together, growing sticky and malapert. The Girls are taken on a short but dizzying journey, straight up, into the Æther, until there beside them in the grayish Starlight is the ancient, gravid Earth, the Fescue become a widthless Wand of Light, striking upon it brilliantly white-hot Arcs. 
   
  ‘Parallax.’ "
   
  Surely more than just poetic license to create a “climax” for the chapter? Perhaps the light reflects oddly on the “Fescue of Ebony,” which shines white, forming white Arcs as it is moved about, pointing to Venus? Have I started to clear the waters, only to re-muddy them?
   
   
   
   
   
  I realize that I am about 6 months late, Toby, but you expressed some doubt about the definition of "fescue."
   
  From the on-line OED, def. 2: "a small stick, pin, etc. used for pointing out the letters to children learning to read; a pointer."
   
  I have found "fescue" on 3 pages. This definition works well in the context of page 336 ("Picking up a Fescue, she [Tenebrae] leans toward the Map upon the Wall 
 ‘King Charles begins 
 here’ ") and page 92 (" ‘Now then,’ Mason rapping upon the table’s Edge with a sinister looking Fescue of Ebony, whose List of Uses simple Indication does not quite exhaust, whilst the Girls squirm pleasingly").
   
  But I am puzzled by Pynchon’s (Wick’s?) usage on page 93: 
   
  "
jaunty little Chins and slender Necks, posing and reposing, blond girls laughing together, growing sticky and malapert. The Girls are taken on a short but dizzying journey, straight up, into the Æther, until there beside them in the grayish Starlight is the ancient, gravid Earth, the Fescue become a widthless Wand of Light, striking upon it brilliantly white-hot Arcs. 
   
  ‘Parallax.’ "
   
  Surely more than just poetic license to create a “climax” for the chapter? Perhaps the light reflects oddly on the “Fescue of Ebony,” which shines white, forming white Arcs as it is moved about, pointing to Venus? Have I started to clear the waters, only to re-muddy them?

       
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