coffee in M & D, maybe?, and its whole relation to Pynchon and AtD

[Mark Kohut]

It should be noted that Ekirch’s conclusion about the origins, if not the inadequacies, of seamless sleep was in dispute even before the publication of his book. In “Caffeine and the Coming of the Enlightenment,” a brisk, informative essay that appeared in a 2003 issue of Raritan, Roger Schmidt, an English professor at Idaho State, stands Ekirch’s argument on its head. According to Schmidt, it was the introduction of caffeine and coffee houses in the late seventeenth century, along with the practice of late-night reading, the development of the first accurate clocks and timepieces, and the consolidation of the Protestant ethos (“Time is money”), that worked to devalue the idea of sleep. And this, in turn, “created a demand for better nocturnal lighting.” Just what we need: another chicken-or-egg argument.
Never mind. Ekirch is a man on a mission and, to a remarkable degree, he has reclaimed that portion of the circadian cycle which historians have traditionally neglected. He has emptied night’s pockets, and laid the contents out before us. If the resulting work, with all its proverbs, adages, anecdotes, facts, and figures, smells a little of the lamp, it’s a fair trade-off. “At Day’s Close” serves to remind us of night’s ancient mystery, of the real reason we reach for the light switch. Ultimately, it’s not the wattage but Dante’s lustro sopra that we yearn for—God’s grandeur flaming out “like shining from shook foil.” The night may also be His handiwork, but who really likes the dark except vampires and people with sensitive retinas? Darkness suggests ignorance and hopelessness, and, as a symbol of despair or bad tidings, it can’t be beat. Would Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, be remembered half so well had he
 not mused, after seeing a lamplighter turning up the gas lamps outside his office on the eve of the First World War, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”? No one wants the lights to go out, and all our valiant attempts to illuminate the night are merely fearful expressions of the permanent darkness that awaits. ♦


      
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