MDMD(5)----Rebekah

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Steven Maas writes:
> As one itty-bitty little part of a lengthy yet thoughtful post that I
> haven't digested yet (burp) Chris wrote:

> > But help me here, ladies and gents, I don't know what Tellurick means
> > other than earthly.  That's a pretty critical notion, and one that would
> > certainly help make sense of these half-formed thoughts.

> My pathetic Webster's Ninth New Collegiate says a bit about that New Age
> connotation of telluric mentioned by Eric:

> 	3. being or relating to a usu. natural electric current flowing
> 	   near the earth's surface.

That's a very specific use of telluric and I doubt it is one which
Pynchon's use can bear as a reading. The word `telluric' comes from
the Latin noun `tellus' meaning both the earth and also, usually
capitalized in post-Roman usage, the Roman Goddess of the Earth.
Telluric was adopted as the adjective since the noun declines as
tellus, telluris. Telluric was coined in English (forget the date but
I think it it was C16-C18) to mean of the earth or of the goddess of
the earth, plain and simple. It's application to currents in the earth
would be a natural piece of specialised usage in the relevant
science(s).

Note that Pynchon made mention of Tellurium and Selenium when he snuck
whispers of heavy metal poisoning into the Nazi-attended seance scene
in Germany in part 1 of GR. Here the metals are mock-symbolic of the
influence of the earth (Lat tellus) and the moon (Gk selene), the
planets after which the metals were named.

Telluric is probably one of the key words to look out for and mull
over in M&D. Maybe what with all the emphasis on Wind (Austral or
Astral) we also ought to be looking for images of Fire and Water?
(Dixon and Mason, respectively?)


Andrew Dinn
-----------
How do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of pleasure clos'd by your senses five