Between 'The Day' And 'Deep-Night Clarity'

I finished reading a collection of Saul Bellow stories last night. Most books by Bellow, there's rarely a page where something doesn't resound or resonate, where something doesn't ring a bell. I was reading 'Cousins' the last in the collection I have and, what with the sun flung well below the horizon some-many hours previous, I was flagging — when Bellow struck this one. It was more like an alarm bell:

Sleep is out of the question, so instead of going to bed I make myself some strong coffee. No use sacking out; I'd only go on thinking.

Insomnia is not a word I'd apply to the sharp thrills of deep-night clarity that come to me. During the day the fusspot habits of a lifetime prevent real discovery. I have learned to be grateful for the night hours that harrow the nerves and tear up the veins—"lying in restless ecstasy." To want this and to bear it, you need a strong soul. [1]

Those "fusspot habits of a lifetime" eh? Time to wake up. Except it's perhaps absurd for a twenty-five-year-old to read this and pretend to recognise something in it. Anyway, it made me want to read on into the night and I foolishly started Herzog as soon as I'd finished 'Cousins', hoping to do just that. Of course, around page thirteen I was half-asleep and half-worried about getting up for work the next morning. I suppose my soul isn't quite ready for that kind of beating yet.

Still the passage reminded me of a sentiment I'd picked up years ago reading Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. I remember very clearly in that book reading the phrase 'against the Day' and thinking how brilliant it was. I even talked my friend and bandmate Jerome into writing a song around that idea. It took me a while (and a lengthy e-mail) to explain it. I can't remember what happened next but he was somehow persuaded and then asked me to write lyrics to his chords and vocal melody. I tried, I failed, but J managed to tweak a few of the words and it seemed to work. The song is actually called 'Against The Day'.

I can't remember whether the actual book Against The Day had come out by the time we were playing it in our live set. But I remember picking up on the phrase in Mason & Dixon and only after some time hearing about the book and thinking that I'd somehow tuned into something important. Or at least into something that Pynchon was thinking, which to me is just as good.

Mason & Dixon is the story of the drawing of the Mason-Dixon line which divides Pennsylvania from Maryland. In the passage in which the phrase 'against the Day' appears, the two main characters (Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon) have completed their arduous task, having with work-crews physically marked up the border with stones (like the one pictured), and are now journeying back towards the American East Coast. I shall end with the passage here for context but also because, even for all the other beautiful moments in Mason & Dixon, it's one of the most Romantic pieces of prose I can ever remember reading:

Here lie the most difficult Miles of the long Traverse, this ascent out of Ohio and out of the West. Unsettl'd by the abrupt absence of Mohawks, with whom they have come to feel almost secure, as so seldom in this Continent of Hazard, the Skies, night upon night, too clouded over for Observations, both Surveyors, cast into Perplexity, Drink and play Whist for Sums neither will ever see all in one place at the same time,— the Crew meanwhile deserting Day upon Day, their replacements taking ever more exorbitant Wages,— yet, whilst they bide in this Realm of the Penny-foolish and Pound-idiotick, till the Moment they must pass over the Crest of the Savage Mountain, does there remain to them, contrary to Reason, against the Day, a measurable chance, to turn, to go back out of no more than Stubbornness, and somehow make all come right...for, once over the Summit, they will belong again to the East, to Chesapeake,— to Lords for whom Interests less subjunctive must ever enjoy Priority. [2]

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[1] Him With His Foot In His Mouth and Other Stories. Saul Bellow. (1985) 'Cousins', p275
[2] Mason & Dixon. Thomas Pynchon. (1997) p683