MDDM Ch. 13 Stars and Planets: Uranus

[jbor]

Otto at o.sell at telda.net wrote:

> I see that it cannot be a reference to Pluto.

Yes, and there's also a reference to the "next Planet, yet without a name"
(133.27) in the passage where, "Obless" and "reluctant to sleep", Mason and
Maskelyne "open another bottle of Mountain."

But apparently the barflies in the James's Town pub know about this planet
in 1761 (133.28), so I wonder if rumours of Uranus's impending "discovery"
were actually circulating 20 years prior to it being officially recorded and
named?

> "his own motions" -- Uranus is indeed rotating retrograde compared to the
> other planets in our system.

Yes, true.

> I'm still not any further with the term "Apocrypha of Astrology" (107.15).

My guess is that the reference is to the aforementioned Dragon, Dog and
Whale, as being only apocryphally astrological "signs". In other words,
these are not actual "astrological" nominations of the constellations (cf.
the "signs" of the Zodiac).

> Astrologically Uranus *is* the Heaven, his sign in Astrology is the Sun's
> sign (a circle with a dot) plus an arrow pointing upwards

(snip)

> What is "anti-luminary" then? Uranus is visible to the naked eye or is this
> a characterisation of planets in general because they are only reflecting
> the light? 

I think this has something to do with the black stormcloud that Mason
mistakes for a "Visitant,-- by now more than a Shadow", and Mason's almost
wishful premonition that it is something supernatural, something which has
emanated from some "Author ... Infernal". (133)

I'm not sure that the paradise Euphy mourns is actually Eden, as Terrance
suggested - even though I agree that Biblical allusions and ruminations on
the existence of God by many of the characters are prevalent (eg 138.33
Maskelyne seeking "among the smaller Probabilities for proofs of God's
recent Attendance"). For, as well as the citrus groves Euphy specifically
laments the "Coffee-Fields"! (104.2)

I suspect that there has been (and will be) a panoply of Creation myths
worked into the narrative:

    "What if 'twere so?" declares Maskelyne. "Ev'ry People have a story of
    how they were created. If one were heretickal enough, which I certainly
    am not, one might begin to entertain some notion of the Garden in
    Genesis, as an instance of extra-terrestrial Plantation." (133-4)

Erik von Daniken, anyone? Or _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_?

Maskelyne may not be "heretickal enough", but I'd say Pynchon is, judging by
his particular use of that very term, "heretic", as a writer's "duty" what's
more, in his letter of support for Salman Rushdie and Marianne Wiggins:

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/rushdie.html

Anyway, thanks to both of you for your responses. I note that Pynchon, being
an adult, was able to refrain from gratuitously using the new planet's
eventual name (Uranus) to make the obvious smutty insult, even as he was
characterising Mason, like Pointsman in _GR_, as a masturbator. (134.6)
  
best