MDMD[5]:Rendevouz with Rebekah

[barleydog at earthlink.net]

Stephan Maas writes:
>171.35 to 172.4  "She occupies now an entirely new angular relation to
>Mercy. . .as if, the instant of her passing over having acted as a Lens,
>the rays of her Soul have undergone moral Refraction." 


>Well it says the Living show Mercy by refusing to act on behalf of Death
(Unusually 
>positive for P. don't you think? Are these hypothetical Living persons
>members of the Counterforce?).  Anyhow I can picture this as Mercy and the
>Soul of a living person represented by parallel lines.  Maybe the Lens of
>Death refracted the rays of her Soul away from the parallel plane so that
>her Soul and Mercy are getting further and further apart--forming an
>"entirely new angular relation."  
      
I would like to add another line to this geometry:
I think Pynchon is setting up a straight line between the stars/heaven and
the earth/hell.  Mason has his head up in the stars (up his arse, according
to Rebekah), and Rebekah, from under the earth is exerting another force
which pulls him back towards the earth (not all the way down to where she is
I don't think, but his melancholic moods might indeed cause him to try and
join her).  Now, I haven't read further than Part One, but it's not much of
a spoiler that the protagonists are going to transition from star-gazers to
land surveyors.

                                                David