The Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts toward Infinity

 

 “As the ordeal went on, it became clear to certain of these balloonists, observing from above ... how much the modern State depended for its survival on maintaining a condition of permanent siege--through the systematic encirclement of populations, the starvation of bodies and spirits, the relentless degradation of civility until citizen was turned against citizen, even to the point of committing atrocities ... When the Sieges ended, those balloonists chose to fly on, free now of the political delusions that reigned more than ever on the ground” 

 

image:Odilon Redon. The Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts toward Infinity (L'Œil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini). 1882

 

Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Penguin Publishing Group, 2007, 19.