AtDDtA1: The Falling Darkness

[Dave Monroe]

"The duo appeared to be making for a nearby patch of woods, now and
then casting apprehensive looks upward at the enormous gasbag of the
descending Inconvenience, quite as if it were some giant eyeball,
perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a
spirit of constructive censure. But by the time Lindsay could remove
the optical instrument from the moist hands of Miles Blundell [...]
the indecorous couple had vanished among the foliage, as presently
would this sector of the Republic into the falling darkness." (AtD,
Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 13)


"quite as if it were some giant eyeball"

Odilon Redon. (French, 1840-1916). Eye-Balloon. 1878.

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A3&page_number=12&template_id=1&sort_order=1

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/redon/iballoon.jpg.html

http://www.odilonredon.net/oeilballon.html

Odilon Redon. (French, 1840-1916). L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se
dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward
Infinity). (1882).

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1

http://www.davidrumsey.com/amico/amico760759-71109.html

The Balloon as Metaphor in the Early Work of Odilon Redon

http://www.jstor.org/view/03919064/ap050025/05a00110/0

Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (1995)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114028/

http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=odilonredon&mode=filmmaker

The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage
paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first
unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident
leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_13

Pynchon backs McEwan in 'copying' row

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1965130,00.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/12/05/nwriter06big.gif


"perhaps that of Society itself ..."

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/superego.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego,_superego,_and_id#Super-ego

http://cartome.org/panopticon1.htm

http://cartome.org/panopticon2.htm

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/


"... in a spirit of constructive censure"

Cf. ...

".. my faithful readers ..." (AtD, Pt. I, p. 3)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114273

Faithful to whom?  Or, rather, what?  Inc. the (presumed) author ...


"as presently would this sector of the Republic"

E.g., ...

Larson, Erik.  Devil in the White City:
   Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that
   Changed America.  New York: Crown, 2003.

http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/devilinthewhitecity/home.html

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0607&msg=103050

But what else? Again, though, note "declining light" to "falling darkness" ...