MDMD(7) Notes

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Here are the notes with questions to follow. Commentary is slightly
delayed and may well be posted tomorrow morning. Apologies etc.

n.b. HTML versions of these opening notes are available under

    http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~andrew/pynchon-mdmd.html

Look at the bottom under the resources section.

Andrew Dinn
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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
----- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< ---
MDMD(6) Notes Ch 20-22

199.1 `Doc' Mason's younger son is (apparently) named after
Isaac Newton and is known as `Dr Isaac' or `Doc'. The older son is
William.

199.10 `slacken'd Perimeter'  cf `circle' above [199.1]

199.12 `Delicia Quail' not lost his touch for names, has he?

199.13 `pongee' cf MDMD(5) 169.25

199.17 `Nymphomania' well, it's actually a L18 coinage
according to the OED, which defines as excessive or uncontrollable
sexual desire in a female, freq hyperbol. I guess Pynchon's definition
here is offered by way of amplification on that `freq hyperbol'.
Although, perhaps, in that pre-Freudian era, the term referred to
female desire for sex within marriage to produce babies. Somehow, I
find it hard to believe that certain itches went unnoticed until Freud
scratched them.

199.19 `Sally Lunn' L18, perh name of woman who first sold
such cakes in Bath, in the late C18th i) a sweet, light teacake, usu
served hot, L18 2) any of several varieties of yeast and soda bread,
esp in the Southern US, E20.

199.20 `add inches to any Waistline, even one as trim as yours,
Charlie Mason' eitherthe voyage back from St helena has worked its
magic or this woman is desperate for a husband.

199.22 `Painswick' Gloucestershire village about 5 miles N
of Stroud

200.5 `St Kenelm's church-yard' presumably where Rebekah is buried

200.18 `Oh be a friendly Girl' this and `Kiss me right now,
Sweetheart' sound like captions from 1920s pornography! Is there some
particular version of fop-talk, ancinet or modern, which Pynchon is
satirising here? or did he just copy these phrases off a packet of
Love Hearts?

200.23 `a There-you-see Smirk' love the way this and the
`excus'd' on the next line work together.

200.30 `Times change Hettie [...]' the Newcastle Gang are
Bradley's lot (cf MDMD(6)) backed by Lord Newcastle. With Bradley dead
Mason needs to find new friends or take what he can get.

201.4 `their noontide faces' noontide (= noontime) because
they are only used at or around about local noon to tell what the
corresponding Greenwich time is.

201.14 `Representation' American subjects of the King paid
many taxes on their produce. Since they could not elect members to the
parliament in London which spent much of this tax their slogan was `No
Taxation without Representation'

202.22 `Force majeure' L19, fr Fr=superior strength,
irresistible force, overwhelming power spec in Law, Commerce etc. an
unforeseeable course of events excusing fulfillment of a contract.
i.e. last time the fact of Charles' grief allowed him to dump the boys
and run, this time he is not on.

202.13 `lien' M16, fr OFr loien, fr Lat ligamen=bond, Law, a
right to keep possession of property belonging to another person until
a debt due to that person is discharged.

204.9 Animalcula L16, mod Lat, plural of animalculum, dim of
animal, also animalcule 1) a small or tiny animal, as a mouse or
invertebrate L16-M19 2) a microscopic animal, L17

204.15 `Quartern Loaf' ME fr Anglo Norman quartrun, fr OFr
quart(e)ron, fr either quart(e)=fourth or quartier=quarter 1) a
quarter of something (foll by of) obs exc dial ME 2) a) spec a quarter
of any of various weights and measures, now only of a pint arch LME b)
In full, quartern loaf, a four pound loaf, arch, M18 3) A quarter f a
hundred, twenty five, L15-M17.

204.25 `carnescent' phaps P's invention meaning becoming
more like flesh or meat? OED has carneous, meaning either consisting
of flesh/fleshy or flesh-coloured. cf 205.9

207.8 `Some will wish but to flee [...]' this is a flashback
to Charles youth before he left Stroud or married Rebekah.

207.22 `yet to learn, after it was too late, where she'd
been' this passage is a bit ambiguous but it appears that the
setting is Charles youth when he has met but does not yet know all
about Rebekah's past. In particular, the mention of Eve and Eurydice
suggests that she has either sinned or suffered or both. Charles does
not know whether she has appeared from Paradise, like Eve, or Hell,
like Eurydice.

208.2 `the love-crazy Poet, the tempted Innocent  i.e.
Orpheus or Adam to Rebekah's Eurydice or Eve, respectively.

208.7 `the elder Charles' Mason's father is also called Charles

208.22 `They found a Hill-Top' Another flashback to when
Charles and Rebekah move to London.

208.23 `The Observatory' in Greenwich, London, on the south
bank of the Thames, about 1 mile East of the city centre. Greenwich
faces the Isle of Dogs on the North bank, a long peninsula bounded on
3 sides by a meander of the river. The hill is clearly South of the
Observatory, possibly in Blackheath.

208.33 `Dunno' Hard to imagine from an C18th gent of some
education but it's true Britspeak.

208.33 `Hounslow Heath' Now a dreary suburb in West London
near Heathrow Airport about 20 miles from the city centre; then
probably a village in rather plain surroundings.

209.3 `Indiaman' E18, fr INDIA + MAN as in man of war etc,
Hist, A ship engaged in trade with the Indian subcontinent, spec (also
East Indiaman) a ship of large tonnage belonging to the East India
Company. i.e. a bit like travelling by oil tanker.

209.5 `chicken Nabobs' OED does not list chicken as a
qualifier. I suspect it means either `budget' or `phoney'.

209.7 `Orrery' cf MDMD(3) 94.11. Mason is joking that they
might turn the experience into a touring show.
 `Stargazer's Apprentice'  Cannot help hearing the ambiguity
which accompanied Rebekah's first mention of this term.

209.21 `Pelhamites' phaps after Sir Charles Pelham who
commisioned one of John Harrison's early clocks. Harrison went on to
produce clocks which made accurate measurement of longitude feasible.

209.22 `Place-jobbery' Not in Sh OED but it does have
placeman, a person appointed to a job, esp in government service, for
political reasons, and jobbery, the turning of a public office,
position of trust etc to private gain or advantage, the latter M19.
So, either Pynchon's dictionary has a definition which has evaded the
attentions of the Shorter OED or else he has has invented his own
historical English. Wonder how long before place-jobbery enters the
OED with a citation from Pynchon?

209.26 `Placeman' see Place-jobbery, 209.22, above

209.36 `courting' having switched forward to M&D in the US
we switch back again to M&R in Gloucestershire again. We know it's
Gloucestershire because they ride South to view Stonehenge (210.1)

210.1 `Stonehenge' a stone age circle of standing stone,
some still connected across the top with lintels, used as a cosmic
calendar and for religious ceremonies. It is located east of centre of
a large area of flat land known as Salisbury Plain.

210.2 `Pillion' L15, Hist, a pad attached to the back of a
saddle for an additional rider or luggage.

210.3 `ancient Welsh cattle route call'd the Calfway, that ran
from Bisley down to Chalford and up to the other sid eof the Valley,
toward Salisbury Plain' cf the discussion of Ley Lines at

218.12. Bisley is 5 miles E of Stroud. Chalford is about 4 miles
slightly W of due S from Bisley, but the line to Stonehenge runs E of
S passing through Oakridge which neighbours Chalford, continuing over
the river and up the valley on the other side and on to Stonehenge.
Near Calne, the line passes a smaller stone circle and an image of a
horse carved into the chalky ground of a hillside. I suspect Pynchon
misread the map, confusing Oakridge with Chalford.

210.10 `stargazers' Note how Charles uses lower case and no
hyphen when he says this.

210.19 `Lord in the mercy, he's married a Druid'' which
serves as a rather askance proposal, accepted in equally as oblique a
reply at 210.33

210.34 `And as they ascended [. . .]' the scene switches to
their arrival in Greenwich.

211.14 `across the wind that bears away ev'rything spoken' 
ghosts and spirit voices again.

211.18 `When does Rebekah begin to suspect that she is here to
guarantee her husband's behaviour?' Who do she and her refer to,
Rebekah and her husband or Susannah and her husband? I suspect Charles
since he had a thing for Susannah, but MDMD(6) suggests the
possibility that Bradley may be interested in Rebekah.

211.20 `He wants to dream for her a resurrection' Forward
again to Charles, after the visit to Hester and Elroy which started
the previous chapter.

211.34 `Withal, their Faces are their own, unsortably, - and
claim the Moment' Guess I'm just a sucker for sentences which start
`Withal . . .' . . .

213.9 `Barbados Trials of Mr Harrison's bothersome watch' 
After trials of Harriosn's third and fourth watches in Jamaica, in
61-2 the Admiralty were unhappy with the results and a repeat trial
was arranged on a trip to Barbados which was started in March 1764.
Maskelyne was already in Barbados to check out the watch when it
arrived. He claimed that his lunar observations did a better job than
the watch. cf Sobel p. 124.

213.29 `Lumina' Perhaps P means luminary? Lumina is the
plural of lumen, Latin for light. It exists in English as an Anat/Biol
term for a cavity in a cell or a Phys term for the unit of luminosity,
neither of which fits here. A luminary is both the leading light in a
social group and also either a lamp/artificial light or a natural
light-giving body, esp a celestial objects, the Sun or the Moon, L15.
I would go for luminary or perhaps lumen, anything but lumina.

214.4 `Who's this? Looks like he forgot where the Punch Bowl
went.' This, of course, is Charles!

214.10 `Florizel and Perdiat' Possibly the name of a play,
but I suspect Lalande is more interested in the ladies than the plot.

214.17 `the Mobility' This is fabulous. Now rare, L17, fr
mobile + mob combined, after nobility, the mob, the ordinary people.
Le mot juste, again!

215.2 `Queue-Tie' cf MDMD(2) 51.28

215.3 `pinguid' now chiefly jocular, M17, fr Lat pinguis,
fat, of the nature of or resembling fat; unctuous, greasy; (of soil)
fertile.

215.12 `Hurworth' Hurworth'-on-Tees in County Durham, about
3 miles S of Darlington.

215.19 `Neasham' village about 2 miles E of Hurworth

215.21 `Bloat-Herring' aka bloater, from verb bloat, L16,
cure (herring etc) by salting and smoking lightly (apparently from
bloat, adj arch, E17, soft or pliable; swollen or puffy).

216.1 `Haggis' small Scotch mammal, usu eaten roasted and
considered a great delicacy.

216.13 `Dr Mesmer' F.A. Mesmer, 1734-1815, austrian
Physician who popularized the practice of hypnosis named after him,
mesmerism, also formerly known as animal magnetism. I always thought
he was Antoine Mesmer but the OED lists him as F A and DePugh appears
to refer to him later as Franz (216.24).

216.24 `Oh, Franz gave us a price' Franz = Mesmer? Is this a
mistake or meant to reinforce the idea that DePugh is bluffing to
impress Brae.

217.6 `Pelfier' Probably Pynchon's best bad rhyme (with
Philadelphia) of the book. Glorious.

217.30 `You know the Uncle to see then' Uncle Ives sells
weapons to all and sundry cf MDMD(1) 31.3 and MDMD(4) 105.15

218.2 `Magnetick' jokingly alluding to the old name for
mesmerism, animal magnetism.

218.12 `the Ley Lines which he shows them' There is an old
Roman road which started in London and travelled N up the country
through Bishop Auckland. Most of it is now the current A1. The bridge
at Vinovium appears to be on the section north of Scotch Corner, where
the A1 veers off E to Doncaster and the old road continues straight as
an arrow for about 10 miles, dipping up and down over hills and
valleys. About 7 miles south of Bishop the road cuts the river Tees at
a village called Piercebridge, site of an old Roman town, which I take
to be Vinovium. From the Bishop end the road is mostly downhill and so
straight you can see for bloody miles. I have raced down here in an
old MG and it really feels like you are flying, especially as you hit
the top of some of the rises.

218.22 Bisley Church Badminton is 15 miles SSW of Stroud,
the Camp on the next line is probably Cheltenham, an old military town
10 miles NNE of Stroud. A line between them does just about cross over
Bisley village. n.b. with the Stonehenge line this means Bisley is at
a junction of two ley lines. Big Kaka!

218.33 `Tellurick Energies' cf MMDMD(5) 172.17

219.7 `Palimpsest' cf MDMD(2) 72.4

219.17 `The Romans [. . .] were preoccupied with conveying
Force, be it hydraulic or military,-- along straight Lines So,
what's changed.

219.23 `distant Onlookers' Aliens!

219.28 `Plutonian' No, not an anachronistic astrological
reference to the 9th planet, merely a dig at Dixon's choice of
lucrative trade over scholarship, invoking the name of the god of
wealth.

219.31 `Ormazd' also Ormudz, god of light and good, one of
two gods in the Manichean religion Zoroastrianism, the other being
Ahriman, god of darkness and evil. Zoroastrians were known as Fire and
Sun worshippers because their ritual identifies Ormudz with fire and
with the Sun. Fire is used in some fo their religious ceremonies.

219.34 `Chaldron' M16, fr OFr chauderon fr late Lat
calidarium, cooking pot 1) = cauldron M16-M18, 2) A dry measure of
capacity (also chalder) now only spec a measure of coals of approx 36
bushels, E17.

219.35 `Eppur si muove' Ital = `Yet, it moves' I recall
(wrongly or rightly) these were Galileo's words after an interrogation
by the church in which he was forced to recant his view that the Earth
moves round the Sun rather than vice versa. Any confirmation.

220.7 `Fluxions' part of Newton's system of calculus, I believe
these were rates of change over time of spatial quantities.

220.13 `a set of lines in space' forces along lines again
and this time via Newton!

221.1 `Dodman' now dial, M16, origin unknown, a snail.

221.16 `Tow Law' Tow pronounced as in plough. village about
10 miles NNW of Bishop Auckland.

222.19 `De Litteraria Expeditione et Soforthia'  apparently
the (approximate) title of Fr Boscovitch's book cf 222.30

222.26 `the march from Rome to Rimini' presumably part of
the measuring of the 2 degrees of latitude documented by Boscovitch cf

223.19

223.32 `tilth-stopp'd Ears' tilth is related to till menaing
to cutlivate soil. It has also come to mean the soil itself.