Binoculars in literature (1 Viewer)

[typo]

Somewhat cheating. If you search google books with appropriate terms you'll find some fiction amongst the listings.

David

 

[KorHaan]

Thanks to all for your very interesting contributions. Some really inspiring pieces here among the text passages. LPT, Hemingway could really write, that's for sure. Haven't read something by Richard Adams so far. Perhaps it were the animated film adaptions that lessen my interest in the past.

Steve

I didn't like the animated "Watership Down" film, too shallow IMO regarding characters in the book. (Though they were rabbits, it's more than a bunny book, it's something of a Homerian odyssey.) I read the book in the Dutch translation first, in 1975; later I read the English original. I liked WD very much, excellent read.
I then tried "Shardik" in English, but felt a bit disappointed and never came to finish it.
"The Plague Dogs" was the Richard Adams again I knew from "Watership Down". Good stuff.

Best regards,

Ronald

 

[hinnark]

Somewhat cheating. If you search google books with appropriate terms you'll find some fiction amongst the listings.

David

I wasn't aware that Google does already have the service to search with terms in books. I guess one day they can call my current blood pressure values if I'm asking.

Steve

 

[BobinKy]

This is an excellent thread topic.

*****

I think Ernest Hemingway and binoculars go together quite well. His writing style is similar to binoculars, as his text focuses upon the detail of a scene or person or animal or object as binoculars focus upon what is in the eyecups. The Scribner Classics hardcover series published in the late 1990s even have a round focused image on the cover, much as resembles the round view through binoculars.

Here are a few links to illustrate.

Green Hills of Africa

The Sun Also Rises

A Farewell to Arms

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Islands in the Stream

To Have and Have Not

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories

The Old Man and the Sea​

...Bob
Kentucky

 

[typo]

I wasn't aware that Google does already have the service to search with terms in books. I guess one day they can call my current blood pressure values if I'm asking.

Steve

Steve,

On the Google menu, click 'more' for the drop down menu and select 'books'. Put in terms like "Zeiss" and "Binoculars" and you get a list of publications which includes a text search. Most of them are technical publications and magazines, but if you click through the pages there you'll find quite a few novels.

I afraid Google already knows a lot more about us than I'm comfortable sharing. :-C

Have fun,

David

 

[Mike Penfold]

Thanks to all for your very interesting contributions. Some really inspiring pieces here among the text passages. LPT, Hemingway could really write, that's for sure. Haven't read something by Richard Adams so far. Perhaps it were the animated film adaptions that lessen my interest in the past.

Steve

This is off-topic, but I just watched the 1982 adaptation of The Plague Dogs.

The backgrounds leave something to be desired; however, IMO the tightly-edited story about animals fleeing trivial, painful experiments; the depth of characterization; and absolutely brilliant voices make this a classic. Not for kids.

There are a pair of porroprisms in the movie which someone may be able to identify. Also birds.

Mike

 

[MSP1LT]

"The M IV/1T Carl Zeiss 7x50 binoculars, without case, weighed two pounds, eight ounces, as compared with the other best 7x50's in the Atlantic at the time-the British Barr and Stroud Pattern 1900A, which weighed a full pound more. The Zeiss was seven inches long, the Barr and Stroud nine. The Zeiss internal glass surfaces were bloomed to reduce reflection losses, not so the Barr and Stroud. The diameter of the objective for both was 50. The Zeiss glass was striking for its high light transmission, 80 percent compared to 66 percent for the un-bloomed Pattern 1900A. The Zeiss provided excellent eye freedom in that it was not necessary for the observer's eye to hold rigidly to one position in order to maintain the best optical performance. Movement of the observer's eye across the axis had little or no effect on the quality of definition in the various regions of the field of view, whereas in the Pattern 1900A any slight movement of the observer's eyes across the axis resulted in serious optical deterioration. The distance between the eye point and the eye lens, which determined the ease and comfort with which the instrument could be used, was preferable in the Zeiss, providing better eye relief. in comparisons of watertightness, the Zeiss again was clearly superior: a Zeiss immersed in water for ten minutes showed no bubbling, whereas a Stroud and Barr bubbled within two minutes. A pair of loose didymium glass filters with a strong absorption band in the yellow of the spectrum could be fitted to the Zeiss eyepieces enabling nearby boats to communicate with each other at night by yellow lights."

OPERATION DRUMBEAT by Michael Gannon Harper & Row 1990

 

[hinnark]

Mike, thanks for additional info. Film samples are welcome, too.

John, your text sounds technical rather than fictional. Stumbled on two terms. The author does use "bloomed" instead of "coated". The other one is Didymion which according to wikipedia absorbs light at 589 nm (yellow). Maybe I'm a bit slow-witted in the moment, but I have no idea how such a filter could enable a method of communication by yellow lights?

Steve

 

[etudiant]

Mike, thanks for additional info. Film samples are welcome, too.

John, your text sounds technical rather than fictional. Stumbled on two terms. The author does use "bloomed" instead of "coated". The other one is Didymion which according to wikipedia absorbs light at 589 nm (yellow). Maybe I'm a bit slow-witted in the moment, but I have no idea how such a filter could enable a method of communication by yellow lights?

Steve

Bloomed is the term used by the UK sources for surface coatings in the 40s and perhaps even now. So that is a legitimate usage.
Re the filters, there does seem to be a glitch in the comment, depending on the absorption or transmission frequencies of the filters. Certainly there was extensive use of specially modified binoculars for optical communications by both sides in WW2, so the idea is right.

 

[hinnark]

Bloomed is the term used by the UK sources for surface coatings in the 40s and perhaps even now. So that is a legitimate usage.
Re the filters, there does seem to be a glitch in the comment, depending on the absorption or transmission frequencies of the filters. Certainly there was extensive use of specially modified binoculars for optical communications by both sides in WW2, so the idea is right.

Yes, I thought already about something like this. Anyway, the quotation is interesting. The book is even available in German translation. So thanks for that!

Steve

 

[elkcub]

One of the neatest outdoor books for me was The Complete Walker: The joys and techniques of hiking and backpacking by Colen Fletcher, 1972. Not only was it wonderfully inspiring, but the author often waxes poetic. He begins the section on Binoculars by saying (pg. 227): "I am always astonished that so few hickers carry them. It is not merely that a pair of binoculars can be extremely useful—that by leapfrogging your eyes out far ahead and disclosing the curve of a creek or the impassibility of a rockwall they can save you hours of wasted effort. They are the key to many unexpected and therefore doubly delightful bonuses..." And he goes on to enumerate several such "delightful bonuses," such as "lifting you up to a planing hawk," and "transform[ing] a deer on the far rim of a sunlit meadow from a motionless silhouette into a warm, breathing individual—alert, quivering, suspicious." Practical matters are also included for selecting and carrying binoculars, how to use them in conjunction with a [film] camera, and also easy methods to calculate exposure values.

I don't know if it's great literature, but it certainly helped to get me interested in binoculars. To this day it's a great read.

Ed

 

[hinnark]

Thanks Ed. There's no doubt that Mr. Fletcher is correct here. A pair of binoculars should be part of every survival kit.

I have another quotation:


Jonathan Franzen (2010). Freedom, page 489:

"Lalitha breaked the van in a cloud of dust and duly admired the bird through her binoculars until a flatbed truck loaded with three ATVs roared past."


Regards, Steve

 

[LPT]

I just finished "Feast Day of Fools" by James Lee Burke. I think he is a good writer but be warned there is a fair amount of violence. He writes on a lot of levels other than literal. The book abounds in Biblical references. It also abounds in usage of binoculars although no details about type of binocular or power etc are given. But so many characters use them at so many different times throughout the book that I think they must have some sort of symbolic meaning which completely eludes me.

 

[hinnark]

Thanks LPT.

I found another quotation by one of my favorits of all time:

James Joyce (1986). Ulysses. p. 366. "fieldglasses". The novel was first published in 1922. I think that a quotation that early is quite remarkable.

"BLOOM (In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a grey billycock hat.) Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?"

Steve

 

[hinnark]

Pynchon, Thomas (2009). Inherent Vice. "binoculars"

p. 355 "Through Sauncho's old binoculars he observed a CHP motorcycle cop chasing a longhaired kid along the beach, in and out of folks trying to catch some midday rays."
p. 356 "Sauncho looked at the schooner for a while through the binoculars."
p. 357 "Even with binoculars it was hard to keep the schooner in view."

 

[Sancho]

'David Copperfield', Chapter LV: '...even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy'. Although I suppose Dickens meant telescopes rather than bins.

 

[hinnark]

William Henry Hudson (1919): Birds in town and village. Page 133:
"Well able with my binocular to observe them closely, I saw much to convince me that the starling, too, lives all the year with his mate."

For those who like to read about birds and nature, Hudson could be really rewarding.
Steve

 

[Brigadier]

Writing in 1968 ("Journey Through Britain", chapter 11), John Hillaby comments on the handiness of his Zeiss Telita 6x18 reverse porro binocular:

"A few things that a little money can buy bring pleasure out of all proportion to the price-tag. High among them I rank a pair of good field-glasses; the smaller and more powerful they are the better. You could put my Zeiss Telita in your breast pocket and not notice the weight, but they are always there for pathfinding and the sort of unexpected pleasure I got out of them that morning".

 

[oetzi]

"In der Hand das Perspektiv, Kam ein Mister namens Pief."
Wilhelm Busch, Plisch und Plum

 

[Mike Penfold]

Just finished reading An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, by Rick Atkinson, 2002.

There are several references to binoculars/field glasses, including, "...prowling the beach with his field glasses, Brooke had jubilantly spied a goldfinch, a stonechat, sanderlings, and a ring plover, all carefully recorded in his journal." (page 282) "Three hundred grenadiers were permitted to surrender, their Zeiss binoculars and tins of beef tongue immediately seized as spoils of war." (page 498)

Most interesting is a photograph of Erwin Rommel with an enormous pair of roof prism binoculars, contrasting with another set of roof prisms, and a pair of porro prisms, worn by individuals standing next to him.

Mike