MDMD Time & Tide

[John Bailey]

Didn't really want to let this go, although it is a bit late:

p. 106. "What's the Mystery?" Elthemer shrugs. "Didn't Days take twenty-four 
Hours to pass, as they do now?"
Brae peers thro' the candle-light. "Why Coz, how interesting."


Why is this interesting? It seems to imply that a day can be different. 
Longer/shorter? Or simply something other than an aggregate of hours. What 
would the talking clocks have said? Are these people obsessed with time and 
its measurement? Aren't we all?

Aunt Euphie, slightly earlier, states that we are free to mourn for a time 
we haven't lived. Mason reconstructs his meeting Florinda as it didn't 
occur, which gradually morphs into how it did. This is a memory of a 
daydream. Of course Wicks isn't a reliable remembrancer here. I'd be 
surprised if Mason was. But I don't think it really matters. The chapter 
reads well.

There's a fair bit of mourning in this novel, and I get the feeling that 
mourning is shown as a way out of the linear time being proscribed by the 
Age of Reason. This also happens in Vineland though the idea of regret is 
probably more important there. In fact, now that I think about it, it is 
kind of essential to Vineland, although that novel is less about Time and 
more about times, particular ones.

Anyway, I'm really interested in that 'how interesting' thing. What's 
Tenebrae's take on the matter. She's very cryptic, all these little 
comments. Which is consistent with the time. I wouldn't expect her to come 
out with the sort of brash and ill-thought-out statements the gents are 
forever blurting out. I'm sure we would welcome them on the P-list. Ho ho 
ho.

'Reason' comes up a lot over the St Helena chapters, especially. Is this 
because it is a place devoid of reason? There is a bit of double meaning 
here, dislocating 'Reason' from 'Sanity'. Which would have consequences for 
the Age of Reason.

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