MDMD(3)--commentary

[Meg Larson]

This intriguing commentary is courtesy of Andrew Dinn.


> MDMD(3) Commentary
> ------------------
> 
> Chapter 10 of Mason & Dixon opens with an astonishing image "quoted"
> from the Reverend Wick's Cherrycoke's `Unpublished Sermons':
> 
>     As Planets do the Sun, we orbit `round God according to laws as
>     elegant as Kepler's.  God is as sensible to us, as a Sun to a
>     Planet. Tho' we do not see Him, yet we know where in our Orbits we
>     run, -- when we are closer, when more distant, -- when in His
>     light and when in shadow of our own making. We feel as
>     components of Gravity His Love, His Need, whatever it be that
>     keeps us circling. Surely if a Planet be a living Creature, then
>     it knows, by something even more wondrous than Human Sight, where
>     its Sun shines, however far it lie.  -- Revd Wicks Cherrycoke,
>     Unpublished Sermons (M&D 94)
> 
> Astonishing, that is, to anyone familiar with Gravity's Rainbow. That
> capitalised mention of `Gravity', those planets as `living
> Creature[s]' should do more than ring a few bells - the Fire Brigade
> should be assaulting your consciousness. `Gravity His Love'. Now there
> is a Key fit to grace any map-maker's Legend, simple and direct enough
> to inspire the driest of Casaubons. And if this is a pointer back to
> Gravity's Rainbow then the `Unpublished Sermon' credit suggests maybe
> that this is an image retrieved from the cutting room floor, one of
> those 300 or so pages rumoured to have been edited from the XL size
> book still often rejected as Dr Pynchonstein's `monster'. Perhaps this
> piece was pruned in error, thereby depriving us of a metaphor which
> sheds light not just on the title but also on many of the other motifs
> which appear in Gravity's Rainbow.  First, let's consider that
> title. If gravity is `God's Love, His Need, whatever it be that keeps
> us circling' then what does that make `Gravity's Rainbow' but that
> which is ever cycling in greater or lesser orbit, moving sometimes
> nearer, sometimes further away, but always kept in its track by that
> continuous fall (Fall?) towards the centre.  Each planet in this solar
> model is a living creature, be it a human soul or a lesser, lapsed
> deity: Venus, the planet of Love, Mars, the planet of War, the Moon, a
> dead Goddess, Pluto, the planet of Riches or is that National
> Socialism? The Constellations, Virgo, Leo etc form the backdrop
> against which this model operates.  What then to make of those
> shadows, turnings-away or towards. What of eclipses? Tidal pulls?
> Orbital perturbations caused by the approach and departure of our
> neighbours in orbit. Our solar system model seems to be capable of
> integrating religion and astrology into a common metaphor for the
> mechanics of the human condition and its psychic eruptions. Pynchon's
> figure drawings from Astronomy display her in clothes which would look
> more appropriate (to our modern eyes, at least) on her whorish twin
> sister. Not that Astrology is thereby smuggled into the realms of
> Reason, rather it seems that she embodies a symbolic framework for the
> working out of Mental and Spiritual Truths. And in its concentration
> on Arcana and Gnostic systems Gravity's Rainbow certainly goes to
> great lengths to overwhelm us with the historical significance of such
> lore - arguably its spiritual significance too.  Let's look for a
> specific parallel in Gravity's Rainbow. I'll pick an example which I
> located whilst following up another idea but I suspect that one does
> not have to go far to find opportunities to apply the Gravity/God's
> Love equation elsewhere in the novel. A key image which is referred to
> again and again in Gravity's Rainbow is the Diaspora, the Talmudic
> myth of the scattering of seeds at the Creation. Here is a dialogue
> between Gwenhidwy and Pointsman towards the end of part 1 of the
> novel.
> 
>     "[. . .] And the Jews! The Welsh, the Welsh once upon a time were
>     Jewish too? one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, a black tribe, who
>     wandered overland, centuries? oh an incredible journey. Until at
>     last they reached Wales, you see."
> 
>     "Wales . . ."
> 
>     "Stayed on and became the Cymri. What if we're all Jews, you see?
>     all scattered like seeds? still flying outward from the primal
>     fist so long ago. Man, I believe that."
> 
>     "Of course you do, Gwenhidwy"
> 
>     "Aren't we then? What about you?"
> 
>     "I don't know. I don't feel Jewish today."
> 
>     "I meant flying outward."
> 
> 
>     He means alone and forever separate. Pointsman knows what he
>     means. So, by surprise, something in him is touched. (GR 170.24-37)
> 
> Oh boy what a touch! Tie that creation myth to the Big Bang and then
> ask yourself: do we fly outwards forever into greater and greater
> separation? is there a centre around which we will circle, stable in
> our track, basking in the warmth of the mysterious attraction we sense
> "by something even more wondrous than Human Sight, however far it
> lie"? or will those scattered seeds eventually halt and then collapse
> back into the centre to be reassembled as the Talmud
> suggests. Gwenhidwy continues:
> 
>     "Pointsman, do you want to hear something really paranoid?"
> 
>     "You too?"
> 
>     "Have you consulted a map of London lately? All this great
>     me-teoric plague of V- weapons, is being dumped out here, you
>     see. Not back on Whitehall, where it's supposed to be, but on me,
>     and I think it is beast-ly?"
> 
>     "What a damned unpatriotic thing to say."
> 
>     [. . .]
> 
>     "They're falling in a Poisson distribution," says Pointsman in a
>     small voice, as if it was open to challenge. "No doubt, man, no
>     doubt -- an excellent point. But all over the fuck-ing East End,
>     you see."
> 
> This is not literal but metaphorical truth. Gwenhidwy is speaking it
> as an `exorcism [. . .] the poet singing back the silence, adjuring
> the white riders, and Gwenhidwy knows, as Pointsman cannot, that it's
> part of the plan of the day to sit inside this mean room and cry into
> just such a deafness' (GR 172.28-31). The centre has been shifted, at
> least in perception, if not in reality, and it is a Political
> shifting, sliding *down* [my emphasis] a `gra-dient of wretchedness'
> (GR 172.36). The threat is `From the East, you see. And the South:
> from the mass of Eu-rope, certainly'. (GR 172.40-41) The gradient does
> not arise from immediate human concerns, `shipping', `pat-terns of
> land use', ancient tribal tabu'. (GR 172.38-39) No, it is some deep
> fear embedded in the City itself - `Perhaps of being swallowed by the
> immense, the silent Mother Continent?' (GR 173.6) The `City Paranoiac'
> (GR 173.3) has reorganised itself to resist Gravity and in doing so
> the strong have moved West (turning away from the Sun) and the weak
> been pushed Eastwards towards the front (and towards the Sun). Is
> there a suggestion here that wealth implies a flight, or at least a
> flinching, away from Gravity, from God; that poverty forces one to
> confront His power all the sooner and more immediately? Or does it
> just mean the poor will die quicker? Is the fact of such a realignment
> along the gravitational gradient an image of Original Sin on a
> planetary scale? cities, whole continents dividing and betraying each
> other? Or is it an indication of some fundamental injustice in God's
> Creation? Perhaps that there is no God, no centre at all. Gwenhidwy's
> subsequent speech suggests that the cosmos, if not its creator is
> somewhat more even handed.
> 
>     He is out with the festive bottle of vat 69 now, and about to pour
>     them a toast.
> 
>     "To the babies." Grinning, completely mad.
> 
>     "Babies, Gwenhidwy?"
> 
>     "Ah, I've been keep-ing my own map? Plot-ting da-ta from the
>     mater-nity wards. The ba- bies born during this Blitz are al-so
>     fol-lowing a Poisson distribution, you see."
> 
>     "Well -- to the oddness of it, then. Poor little bastards."
> 
> The scene then switches to the water bugs which emerge at night to eat
> Gwenhidwy's beans and lentils, `agents of unification, you
> see. Christmas bugs.' (GR 173.39) If nothing else at least the bugs
> are doing their bit to restore the cosmic balance, concurrently
> integrating and reducing the Creation. These same bugs were `deep in
> the straw of the manger at Bethlehem' (GR 173.40), their world one of
> apparent disorder and danger of sudden, unaccountable death. The bugs'
> innocent gnawing might disturb some `mysterious sheaf of vectors that
> would send neighbour bugs tumbling ass-over- antennas down past you as
> you hold on with all legs in that constant tremble of golden stalks.'
> (GR 174.2-4) But even in this world in miniature there is an order and
> significance behind this apparent chaos, some distant, powerful being
> which, through the divinity of its actions, causes yet also mitigates
> these - literally - world- shattering events and it is expressed using
> the Revd Wicks Cherrycoke's image in miniature: `the crying of the
> infant reached you, perhaps, as bursts of energy from the invisible
> distance, nearly unsensed, often ignored. Your saviour, you
> see. . . .'  (GR 174.7-9)