AtDDtA1: Against the Day

[Dave Monroe]

Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:09:41 -0400
From: rich <richard.romeo@[omitted]>
To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l@[omitted]>
Subject: Against the Day

has anyone else mentioned the lighting techniquein photography called
'contra jour' (against the day) or backlighting

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=%27contra+jour%27&btnG=Search

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0608&msg=104463

See also: contre-jour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contre-jour

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0608&msg=104551

Contra-jour: art history term. literally means 'against the day'. It's
usually applied to the figures who appear with their back to the
viewer in the German Romantic landscapist Caspar David Friedrich's
paintings. The impression given is an unity between the viewer and the
figure in the painting looking out to the same scenery.

http://gchampagne.wordpress.com/2006/08/23/contra-jour/

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0609&msg=106953

Contra-jour

Literally "Against the day." but taken in photography to be "Against the
light"

http://www.jamescarroll.me.uk/contra_jour.htm

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0610&msg=109175

Contra Jour

Contra Jour is a photographic term meaning, literally, 'Against the
Day' or 'Against the Light'. This seems particularly relevant given
that light is a major theme in the book.

Other books of the same title

Against the Day is also the title of a book by Michael Cronin, dealing
with an alternate history of World War II.

Biblical connotations

In his review of Against the Day in the Wall Street Journal, Alexander
Theroux (author of Darconville's Cat and the upcoming Laura Warholic;
or The Sexual Intellectual) traces the title of Pynchon's novel back
to the Bible, 2 Peter 3:7.:

(5) For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of
old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word
of God;
(6) by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with
water, perished:
(7) but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have
been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment
and destruction of ungodly men.
(8) But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
(Source: American Standard Bible)

Theroux's review can be found in The Wall Street Journal, November 24,
2006, Page W8. (The website is only accessible for subscribers.)

Romans 2:5

"Against the Day" is a fairly common phrase and probably not limited
to one meaning, but this passage from the King James Bible is
particularly resonant, especially considering the great amount of
religious and pseudo-religious imagery in the book:

The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans 2:5 "But after thy
hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God"
(King James Bible)

The bookends of the word "wrath" around "against the day" make this
particularly suggestive of judgement day or the day of wrath. The
passages around this one and around Matthew: 6:34 where Webb's
"Sufficient unto the day" (p.96) appears dwell on judgement: "Judge
not, that ye be not judged. 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye
shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured
to you again."

The themes of the book

The title, Against the Day, contains references to many of the primary
themes of the novel: light, opposites, mirror imagery... Travel
backward through time is quite literally traveling "against the day";
the idea of such surfaces frequently in the book. The search for
eternal life might also be considered a literal struggle "against the
day", or the inevitable effects of living through any measured length
of time.

Another great writer full of Biblical allusions, William Faulkner,
used the phrase in a 1955 speech: "We speak now against the day when
our Southern people who will resist to the last these inevitable
changes in social relations, will, when they have been forced to
accept what they at one time might have accepted with dignity and
goodwill, will say, "Why didn't someone tell us this before? Tell us
this in time?"

That it is all too late for America, that we the people might feel
that we should have been told before, told in time, might describe a
Pynchon theme throughout all his work. See The Education of Henry
Adams and its relationship to Gravity's Rainbow.

Appearances of "against the day" in other Pynchon works

Mason & Dixon

p. 125

Mason nods, gazing past the little Harbor, out to Sea. None of his
business where Maskelyne goes, or comes,—God let is remain so. The
Stars wheel into the blackness of the broken steep Hills guarding the
Mouth of the Valley. Fog begins to stir against the Day swelling near.
Among the whiten'd Rock Walls of the Houses seethes a great Whisper of
living Voice.

p. 683

...till the Moment they must pass over the Crest of the Savage
Mountain, does there remain to them, contrary to Reason, against the
Day, a measurable chance, to turn, to go back out of no more than
Stubbornness, and somehow make all come right...

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Against_the_Day_Title