MDDM Ch. 16 Questions, Comments

[jbor]

on 25/11/01 1:07 AM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:

> No, I'm annoyed because past experience leaves me
> suspecting the Distinct Probability of Deliberate
> Insult here.  I mean, let's be honest ...

No, I don't believe that that's fair or accurate.

snip

>> (and,as you of course well
>> know, it's MDDM, and always has been).
> 
> Actually, hadn't really noticed that.

Come on. I mean, let's be honest here ...

snip

>> as I'd already
>> typed up that interesting passage referring
>> to "Death's Thousand Metaphors in the World", and
>> hadn't noticed anyone else commenting about it,
>> I left it in. 
> 
> This is a Very Interesting Passage, indeed, and,
> again, do note what some of those "Thousand Metaphors"
> are here.  A strong concern for social justice, fair
> treatment of labor, and so forth.

I think that the concern is probably a wee bit broader than just that (it
is, after all, "Death's Thousand Metaphors", not Death's one metaphor), and
I think that the focus that Rebekah brings to Mason is on "refusals, among
the Living" - selfishness, complacency, ignorance - in relation to "Mercy",
compassion, fellowship in general.

> I think such
> concerns, as a legacy of both the 30s and the 60s
> Progressive to Leftist movements, and as expressed in
> Vineland, was a recent Topick at the List, no?

I think his representation of the former is quite a bit more sympathetic, or
less critically satirical, than of the latter in that novel. But I think
we're dealing with a different historical era here: "Owners, Infantry,
Bailiffs, Prison".

> Yet
> another of Mr. Pynchon's Memorable Phrases ...

Indeed.

>> I also left in a brief recount of "the War of '39"
>> because it gave a slightly different version of the
>> lead-up events to 'The War of Jenkins' Ear' than the
>> source you cited.
> 
> This was not a bad idea at all, as I deliberately
> avoided posting any straightforward historical text on
> the whole Jenkin's Ear/King George's War/War of the
> Austrian Succession, for a number of reasons ...
> 
> Along the way, Pynchon outlined the immediate events
> fairly well; 

Actually, I was surprised that he didn't outline these events in the text at
all, which is why I needed to look it up in the first place. It's really
just that half-sentence at 175.14 and a few cryptic references in
Mournival's spruiker's spiel, which don't provide much in the way of actual
historical data for the reader at all. I did recognise it as something which
had a basis in historical fact, however, not because I'd ever heard of it
before but because that's one of Pynchon's favourite techniques: a throwaway
reference to an improbable name or personage or incident from the annals of
history, which then forms the basis for one of his trademark flights of
fictive fancy. As opposed, say, to the obviously made-up Mr Squivelli and
his incidental music for the mandolin entitled *L'Orecchio Fatale* (177.6).
As a reader you begin to develop a cueing system as to what's improbably
"real" and what's just made-up in Pynchon's novels.

> Basically, I just wanted to establish that the whole
> Jenkin's Ear thing did have an historical basis, and
> that it did open onto larger, world-historical events
> with some resonance to those of M&D's (vs. Mason and
> Dixon's) own historical milieu, and get on to that
> Shepard and Shepard book as a possible, probable,
> even, source for Pynchon.

I'm not particularly convinced of that. It's a very incidental mention, and
Walpole doesn't get much of a guernsey in the novel at all. But quite
probably an interesting text in its own right nevertheless.

snip
> 
>> So, sorry for that as well I guess.
> 
> No, again, we're cool here ...

Good.
 
>> And so, I hadn't "ignored the past week or so here",
>> as you complained, and that's why I asked you about
>> that complaint. Again, I couldn't see what your
>> problem was.
> 
> I don't complain about being ignored, I complain about
> being insulted ...

Then you would also recognise and understand that I have had to endure
pretty much constant insults and false accusations here over a very long
period of time, and why I am concerned to speak up when someone else starts
to fall into the same habit.

But there was no insult intended from my end and, as I've already said, I'm
sorry for any insult that was perceived at yours.

best