MDMD(13): Fathers and sons

[Terrance]

Michel Ryckx wrote:
> 
> Chapter 20 offers some beautiful thoughts on Charles Mason, as he is
> presented as the father of two sons, while at the same time having a
> difficult relationshiop with his own father.
> 
> First, after having delayed the confrontation with his family and the
> boys, Mason at last goes out to visit them.  The relation with the boys
> is, well, "as if he has never been away", (M&D, 202.26-27), and he's
> surprized by
> 
> "[. . .] their inability to hold back, the purity of the
> not-yet-dishonest, --'t would take a harder Case than Mason not to
> struggle with Tears of Sentiment."  (M&D, 202.28-30)
> 
> which feeling the parents among you must not be unfamiliar with.
> 
> On the other hand, Mason, ("I am thirty-four", 203.5) is afraid of his
> father; an unpleasant, but short, conversation follows.
> 
> But then, the story focuses on Mason sr.  We see his son from the
> father's point of view: jr. helping sr. out in the bakery, a long time
> ago, and conversations the father wanted to have --differing from the
> ones actually held--, which makes this "neck of the great Family Funnel"
> (204.3) a lot more vulnerable: the two last paragraphs of this chapter
> are very moving.
> 
> Paul Nightingale, in one of his highly esteemed posts, asked us last
> week:
> 
> "Therefore, and not for the first time, a question. How is the above a
> 'history of the present'?"
> 
> I cannot help but think about two things on mr. Pynchon personally:
> 
> (1) The novel is (also) dedicated to a young boy, mr. Pynchon's son.
> This chapter gave me the impression the father took over from the writer
> when describing the love for kids and vice versa.
> 
> (2) It has been rumoured that mr. Pynchon has been living estranged from
> his family.  Now, older, wiser, he's able to see the other as he may
> have been.
> 
> Just a thought.


When I think about Paul's question, the last thing that comes to mind is
mr. pynchon or his family. However, as the paradise lost, bodily
resurrection, transubstantiation/canibalism and eternal present stuff
has been pooh poohed, the harp strings plucked most forcibly rude from
the instrument,  
I will only say that music (muse) serves the same in those pynchonian
books from time to time, that is, "Invito Patre [insert what fathers
will say are but the follies of youth] Verso. MD.135