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From http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/v/eigen.html — Perhaps history this century, thought Eigenvalue, is rippled with gathers in its fabric such that if we are situated, as Stencil seemed to be, at the bottom of a fold, it's impossible to determine warp, woof, or pattern anywhere else. By virtue, however, of existing in one gather it is assumed there are others, compartmented off into sinuous cycles each of which come to assume greater importance than the weave itself and destroy any continuity. Thus it is that we are charmed by funny looking automobiles of the '30's, the curious fashions of the '20's, the peculiar moral habits of our grandparents … We are accordingly lost to any sense of continuous tradition. Perhaps if we lived on a crest, things would be different. We could at least see. (Pp. 155-6, Harper Perennial ed.) |