MDDM Ch. 18 Summary and Notes

[jbor]

1762. Mason and Dixon are back in England. After a brief and unexpectedly
satisfactory welcome in London, Jere heads North to his mining town pub,
while Chas lingers for a time before also heading home.

The two boys, William and "Doctor Isaac", barely remember their father.

Bradley dies in Gloucestershire in July, leading Chas to a muddled series of
reminiscences: a litany of mingling grudges and loyalty towards his former
friend and mentor; laments over his emotional attachment to Susannah
(Bradley's much younger wife: Is it jealousy, or guilt, which provokes
Mason's melancholy here? And is part of his regret and worry about betraying
Rebekah brought on by the memory of this lingering affection for Susannah?);
and recollections of his own astronomical career, the apparent finagling for
possession of Bradley's astronomical papers, the century's comets, and the
deaths (and cosmic apotheosises) of both Susannah and Rebekah.

***

"Cock Lane Ghost" (183-4) A phrase formerly used for a tale of imagined
terrors. In 1762 mysterious knockings were heard at 33 Cock Lane,
Smithfield, which William Parsons, the owner, said came from the ghost of
his sister-in-law, Fanny Kent, who had recently died of smallpox. Parsons,
with the hope of blackmail, wished people to think she had been poisoned by
her husband. All London was agog with the story. Royalty and the nobility
made up parties to go to Cock Lane to hear the ghost. Dr Johnson and other
people investigated the alleged phenomena. Eventually it was found that the
knockings were made by Parsons' 11-year-old daughter rapping on a board that
she took into her bed. Parsons was condemned to the pillory.

"Mrs Woffington ... Garrick" (184.3) Margaret ('Peg') Woffington (1720-1760)
Irish actress, was a Dublin bricklayer's daughter.  From seventeen to twenty
she played on the Dublin stage, and in 1740 appeared at Covent Garden as
Sylvia in _The Recruiting Officer_. Her beauty and vivacity carried all
hearts by storm. David Garrick was one of her admirers. On May 3, 1757, she
broke down, and left the stage never to return. Her last days were given to
charity and good works. See Lives by Daly (1888), Molloy (1884) and J.
Dunbar (1968), and the novel _Peg Woffington_ by Charles Reade (1853).

David Garrick (1717-79) English actor, manager and dramatist, he studied
Latin and Greek under Samuel Johnston and trained as a lawyer before turning
to the stage. He found fame portraying Shakespeare's Richard III and is
renowned as the most versatile actor in the history of the English stage.

The two boys are glimpsed at the stream with their toy boats, "shepherding
them with Willow Wands, no more obtrusive in this Naval History than Gods in
a Myth" (184.30) Nice visual, an arguably authorial voice (Wicks is
noticably absent, both literally and w/r/t narrative tone, at this point),
and an apparently atheistic metaphor.

"Nabobs" (passim), "Noboblets" (186.35) Nabob. Corruption of the Hindi
*nawwab*, English Nawab, "deputy governor", used of the governor or ruler of
a province under the Mogul Empire (Mogul was the title of the Emperors of
Delhi from the 16th to 19th C.) Such men acquired great wealth and lived in
splendour, eventually becoming independent princes. The name was
sarcastically applied in the late 18th C. to servants of the East India
Company who retired to England, having made their fortunes, bought estates,
won seats in Parliament and so on.

It is the latter usage which Pynchon employs throughout _M&D_.

187.1 "Buzz-men" ?

186.29 "quotinoctian" ?

188.36 "Dr Hooke" Robert Hooke (1635-1703) English chemist and physicist,
curator of experiments to the Royal Society from 1662, its secretary from
1677. A prolific inventor - the quadrant, Gregorian telescope and microscope
are materially his inventions - he was also a botanist, surveyor, architect
and mathematician.

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