"Mason had more than once caught the old Astronomer watching Susannah with a focus'd Patience he recogniz'd from the Sector Room...as if waiting for a sudden shift in the sky of Passion, like that headlong change in Star Position that had led him to the discovery of the Aberration of Light,-- waiting for his Heart to leap again the way it had then, after Night upon Night of watching a little Ellipse, a copy in miniature of how the Earth was traveling in its own Orbit, enacted by London's own Zenith-star, Caput Draconis, the Dragon's Head, looking for the Star's Parallax, as had been Dr. Hooke before him."
— Pynchon, Thomas (b. 1937)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Henry Holt Company
Date
1997
Metaphor
"Mason had more than once caught the old Astronomer watching Susannah with a focus'd Patience he recogniz'd from the Sector Room...as if waiting for a sudden shift in the sky of Passion, like that headlong change in Star Position that had led him to the discovery of the Aberration of Light,-- waiting for his Heart to leap again the way it had then, after Night upon Night of watching a little Ellipse, a copy in miniature of how the Earth was traveling in its own Orbit, enacted by London's own Zenith-star, Caput Draconis, the Dragon's Head, looking for the Star's Parallax, as had been Dr. Hooke before him."
Metaphor in Context
Mason had more than once caught the old Astronomer watching Susannah with a focus'd Patience he recogniz'd from the Sector Room...as if waiting for a sudden shift in the sky of Passion, like that headlong change in Star Position that had led him to the discovery of the Aberration of Light,-- waiting for his Heart to leap again the way it had then, after Night upon Night of watching a little Ellipse, a copy in miniature of how the Earth was traveling in its own Orbit, enacted by London's own Zenith-star, Caput Draconis, the Dragon's Head, looking for the Star's Parallax, as had been Dr. Hooke before him. When the Star inexplicably appear'd to be moving, it took him some time to understand and explain the apparent Disorder of the Heavens he was observing. "I thought 'twas meself,--all the Coffee and Tobacco, driving me unreliable." He also saw the Time a Great Finger reaching in from the Distance, pausing at Draco and,-- gently for a Finger of its size, stirring up into a small Vortex of Stars there.
(pp. 188-9)
(pp. 188-9)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Pynchon, Thomas. Mason & Dixon. New York: Henry Holt Company, 1997.
Date of Entry
11/08/2010
