AtDDtA1: The Falling Darkness

[David Morris]

Dahli & her Father, Merle Rideout, are introduced to us by way of a
view from a descending giant eyeball "perhaps that of Society itself,
ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."
Shades of Big Brother, and later we learn that the Inconvenience has
been (& will be again soon) periodically hired out for surveillance,
again on instructions from the Chums' hidden bosses.

What's interesting about this scene is that the Chums accidentally
interrupt Merle photographing his daughter in the nude, kiddie porn.
And although it is not explicit, one gets the feeling that Dally might
be the sexual substitute of her missing mother.

Strange implications, and yet another example of pynchon giving Lolita
treatment to his own nymphets.  One has to wonder...

David Morris

On 1/24/07, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> "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)