M&D questions/observations - up to p.82

[Paul M]

> davemarc wrote:
> > 
> > > From: still lookin 4 the face i had b4 the world was made
> > <traveler at afn.org>
> > >
> > >
> > > (spoilers)
> > >
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> > > 1.  What about the frequent references to "Wapping?"  First noticed on p.
> > 
> > > 52:  "...the Hautboy-player having been one night absorb'd into that
> > Other
> > > World of which Wapping is the anteroom..."  Is this some sort of
> > euphemism
> > > for death?

There is a kind of occult history/conspiracy theory centered around 
this part of the East End of London and the Churches built by 
Nicholas Hawksmoor to replace one's lost in the Great Fire of London, 
promulgated by the poet/novelist Ian Sinclair ( whose work forms the 
basis for Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor). In one of his books, if I 
remember correctly, he posits the idea that this part of the river 
Thames is a kind of gateway which functions in a way he describes as 
analogous to the Journey made across the River Styx by Charron. 

> > Maybe death, but maybe disappearance, too.  My impression is that Wapping
> > might've been a place where hapless souls were crimped or shanghaied into
> > service on maritime expeditions. 
(Snip)
> 
> Quite possibly. My Knopf Guide to London says about Wapping, 
> "Right beside St. Katharine's Dock, the district of Wapping
> has an unsavory reputation.

This whole area of London (Wapping, Whitechapel and Aldgate) sits 
just to the east of the boundary for the city of London proper, and 
has  thus often provided a home for those, who for one reason or 
other, wished to live, literally, outside the law, or were excluded 
from its boundaries. It occupies a special place in London's history 
markets grew up  outside of the reach of the city and it provided a home 
for refugees and other incomers from abroad. It has long been 
associated with slums and crime not to mention 'entertainment' of the 
sorts sailors might require.

>                                         ... With its famous gallows and its
> wretchedly poor people, Wapping could once rival the worst
> parts of Whitechapel." They then comment on how Wapping
> underwent further dereliction during because of bomb damage
> in WWII and closing of docks and warehouses but that now it
> is on the economic rebound,

read, turned into office blocks and yuppie appartments

>                                                ... "Its modernization prompted
> French writer Claude Roy to comment in 1986: 'Wapping Old
> Stairs, where for two hundred years there were thousands of
> jobless waiting to beg a shilling from passengers as they
> landed, were rotten when I last saw them. Now they're gone
> altogether.'" The docks at Wapping didnt open until 1802.
> 

I'm surprised it's that late, though undoubtedly there would have 
been local river traffic. I lived for a while not far north and 
Wapping still carries to this day a strong smell of its history and 
the river which provided its center. 

Paul M.                 tallpaul at hiatus.demon.co.uk
"You have no expectations until you come face to face
with what you're looking at, and then everything about you
says 'I wasn't expecting this' "
Ann E Imbre Spoken In Darkness"