the Merle center

[Michael Bailey]

to defuse an inadvertent spoiler - it would spoil it if anyone thought
Merle was propositioning his stepdaughter here - the tender sunset moment
is with Erlys, Dalley's mother!


>
> and capable of seguing from appreciation of a sunset all the way into a
> "Barkis-is-willing" moment - p 506-7:
>


> "You could smell crude oil in the air.  The first wheelfolk of summer, in
> bright sweaters and caps and striped socks, went whirring gaily in
> battalion strength along the great viaduct on tandem bicycles, which seemed
> to be a city craze that year.  Bicycle bells going nonstop, the massed
> choruses of them, in all sorts of ragged harmonies, loud as church bells on
> Sunday though maybe with a finer texture.  Roughnecks went in and out of
> saloon doors and sometimes windows.  Elms cast deep shade over yards and
> streets, forests of elms back when there were still elms in Cleveland,
> making visible the flow of the breezes, iron railings surrounding the
> villas of the well-off, roadside ditches full of white clover, a sunset
> that began early and stayed late, growing to a splendor that had her and
> Merle gazing at it in disbelief, and then at each other....
> ""It ain't a Euclid Avenue mansion, you may've noticed that already, but
> it's warm and solid built, there's a leaf-spring suspension of my own
> design that you'd think you were riding on a cloud."
> ""Sure, well being an angel I'm used to that."  But the brightest part of
> that luridly exploding childhood sky was now right behind her face, and
> some of her hair was loose, and she could detect in his gaze enough of what
> he must be seeing, and they both fell silent."
>
>
>


-- 
"Strength you will acquire naturally, if you do plenty of work; and
dexterity you will acquire unconsciously with practice; but style you can
only acquire by constant attention, and then only if you have a clear idea
of what to aim at." - A. F. Jenkin
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120226/b32785d1/attachment.html>