Merle's all-night illumination prolonged itself into an inescapable glow that began to keep him awake.
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Recently, I read something by somebody about Thomas Pynchon saying that his individual sentences and written scenes were easily understood but it was the larger themes which caused all the problems. But I've just read this sentence about eighteen thousand times and I don't know what Pynchon is trying to tell me. Is it that Merle's obsession with learning about photography and light have begun to keep him up at all hours, being that "illumination" is a synonym for "knowledge" (as has been discussed by me ad nauseum)? Hmm, now that I ask that question, I think that's exactly what Pynchon is saying and using light terminology because it's a cute way to phrase it. Pynchon could have added a footnote to this line that just read, "Look how clever I am, you dumb illiterate douchebag! Ha ha! I'm smart! You're stupid! Suck it (and by 'it', I mean my penis, natch!)!"
"Merle's all-night illumination"
A metaphor, I suspect, for the idea of "cramming" for a big test with the added idea that Merle was burning a candle or lantern all night so that he could read, study, and experiment.
"prolonged itself into an inescapable glow"
The "prolonged" here is modifying the initial "all-night" meaning that Merle's cram session soon extended into the following days and weeks. He was unable to escape his need to learn more about light. The "inescapable glow" perhaps suggesting the will-o-the-wisp as metaphor for the knowledge of light Merle now obsessively pursues.
"that began to keep him awake"
Awake because he's busy studying and experimenting but also "began to keep him awake" because he's become obsessed with the subject. He has found his hobbyhorse and he can't stop himself from riding.
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