Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 57: Line 6 (987)

 In the midst of all this biographical litter, a miniature portrait of her appeared.

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"biographical litter"
Kind of a cruel way to describe all the shit that means the absolute most to one single person and practically zero to every other person who ever lived (at least until a date far into the future where somebody would be completely intrigued by finding a thousand year old wallet full of ephemera. Of course, it would still mean zero to them). Cruel but, I suppose, fitting. Even are disgusting shells are eventually just biographical litter.

"miniature portrait of her"
I think I can safely assume, without reading further, that "her" refers to Erlys. Unless this is some Freudian thing! Which it can't be because it's obviously Jungian. Merle misses Erlys and his mind wants to make sure he knows it.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 57: Line 5 (986)

 The wallet was itself a sort of museum, on a smaller scale—a museum of his life, overstuffed with old ticket stubs, receipts, notes to himself, names and addresses of half- or sometimes totally forgotten folks from his past.

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I mean, sure, if I'd read this line before writing about the last line, I wouldn't have repeated what Pynchon was about to say. But then that's part of the reason why I like to write about things I read as I read them. Because it gives me space to come to things on my own terms. It allows me to do the work of understanding the writer even if the writer doesn't always ask me to do as much work as I've been trained to do by jerks like Danielewski, Barth, and Steinbeck (I mean, Steinbeck gives us so much surface story that means enough that most people sort of ignore the three or four other stories he's telling underneath the first and most obvious one, so maybe Steinbeck didn't train me exactly like the other two).

Part of the reason I don't read critical pieces about media and art I love is because I want to establish my own relationship with the art/media before I introduce a third party into the bedroom. Usually the more complex the art/media, the longer it takes me before I'll delve into other people's criticisms and thoughts. I still have never read any third party criticism on House of Leaves because I don't feel I've fully committed to thinking about every aspect that I'm perplexed by. Judging by that, I'll be long dead before I'm ready to read other people's takes on Pynchon!