MDMD(5)---Chap 14 Opening Comments

[Eric Alan Weinstein]

MDMD{5} Opening Comments


Chapter 14—


Chap 14 As companion chapter to Chap 13---

St Helena and Cape Town may seem different, but they have much 
in common. Sailors, whores, slaves, and the Company, be it DEIC 
or BEIC. Money and  power generated for some, from these outposts at 
the edge of the Known. Far away from Europe, they induce underlying 
colonial Hum of cultural displacement. 

In both it may be  said that  "windage calculations are more a matter 
of Sentiment than of Science" (p148) for they enjoy "a Dispensation
not perhaps as relentlessly Newtonian a as Southern England’s (
)".(p133)
Both  communities become  reservoirs "of sin, whose Weight, like that 
of the atmosphere, is bourne day  after day unnotic’d
"  (p155)

Compare  the description of the streets in James Town in chap 13:

 "
yet entering, ye discover its true Extent, which proves Mazy 
as an European City
no end of corners yet to be turn’d (p126)"
"Sailors speak of it as an Opium Dream. Musick every time a door 
or shutter comes open, Torches trailing scarves of flame ever rising.
Chuck-farthing players in the Alleyway. Ornamental Lanthorns scarcely 
bigger than the flames they hold, dangling from the wrists of young 
Ladies with business at this Hour,--" (p 129)


with the brothel in Cape Town in chap 14:

"The fillies
know their Night has begun, and who is coming for 
them now, and some of what will be done to them. Many who have 
been to rooms forbidden to others report seeing, inside these, a Door 
to at least one Room further, which may not be opened. The Penetralia
of the Lodge are thus, even to those employed there a region without a map.
Anything may be there." 
Here also: "The Opium-Girls are kept in a room of their own."  (both from 
p151)

And let us not forget the relentless pairing of Astronomy/Astrology with
prostitution. There are many more details of pairings between the chapters, 
which I hope discussion will bring to light.

     Does Mr Pynchon succeed in this chapter? At what? And how well?
Unlike Mr. Amis, I do not think this is a pastiche, though
it may partake in that vague allusive register from time to time.  We may hear
echoes of De Sade or Henry Miller or Proust or even Keroauc. We know,
or else should know, that their is some discussion going on with Mr 
M.  Focault’s more famous discourses. Pornography, Pynchon has told
N.  us in the Crying of Lot 49, is given to us by vastly patient professionals.
So perhaps is analysis of the whorehouse. I intuit that Pynchon
is using the labyrinth/brothel images to gradually build a complex 
metaphorical structure with a much wider implications for society.
What think ye, dear reader? 


Eric Alan Weinstein
University of London
E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk