MDMD: Pynchon's Mystakes (formerly Re: Buzz-Men)

[jbor]

Thanks Nicole.

I like the two references to "Chicken-Nabobs" you point out, and agree that
it and the term "Naboblets" Rebekah uses probably refer to either young or
aspiring Nabobs, young chaps on the make. The "difficulties with the English
tongue" line also stumped me but it could be referring back to the way the
two "explained repeatedly" about the "already fading" drawing being "but a
Representation". And, on this, is Rebekah's admission of "my own"
difficulties simply a show of feminine modesty, or does it hint at something
else? I can also sense Charles' regret and feelings of inadequacy - some of
it offset onto his reflections about Bradley's relationship with Susannah -
but I think that there is a more extraneous narrative voice producing this
particular conversation (cf. the paragraph at 186.11 just preceding it which
introduces Rebekah and Miss Bradley's "time of infatuation" - an
interesting, Jane Austen-type, relationship perhaps? - where Mason is also
referred to in the third person.)

I don't think that it's such a stretch from pickpockets to conmen here. I
agree that the sense of Rebekah's comment relates to the way that she now
perceives that they might have been a pair of shysters rather than the
honest envoys which they presented as (but, envoys from whom ... ?), who
finagled cash from her under false pretences, which, again perhaps, was
little more than a misrepresentation of Chas's personal handsomeness.

The "Good Egg" line could go either way, I agree, and that's perhaps
intentional. (In fact, I wonder where and when the phrases "good egg" and
"bad egg" derive from?) I think that the tone of melancholy and self-pity at
the end of the chapter here indicates that the personification of the other
customers is as "Bad Hats" rather than "Good Eggs" - emphasising Chas's
feelings of isolation: something along the lines of 'at least the victuals
are savoury at this pub, even if the company is not' - but can easily see it
your way too.

best



on 30/11/01 10:56 PM, Nicole Slagter at A.Buys at net.HCC.nl wrote:

> As you say, Rob J., an interesting passage. It's hard to argue with the
> OED, but I can't quite reconcile myself to "Buzz-men" meaning pickpockets.
> From the context I make it out to mean something like hucksters, travelling
> salesmen, conmen, `selling' Rebekah Mason, rather than his Representation,
> I don't think they wanted money for that. That would fit with their being
> turned out "in that flash way of Naboblets", wouldn't it? I read the passage
> as Rebekah wondering whether she was conned into accepting Mason as a
> husband--
> and, one frame upwards, Mason putting these words into her mouth out of guilt
> for being an inadequate husband; not so much for his disappointing looks as,
> for instance, for his frequent absences. Incidentally, "Naboblets" (which
> Terrance asked about) I first took to mean the same as "chicken Nabobs"
> (see p. 176 or p. 209, the latter instance explains that phrase pretty well),
> namely Nabobs of small rather than large fortune, but later I wondered
> whether it might mean sons of Nabobs, India born and bred maybe. That might
> explain their difficulties with the language? I admit all this is pretty
> speculative. 
> 
> Just one other remark; I think the "Good Eggs" of p. 198, "outnumber[ing] the
> Bad Hats", are people, the pub regulars, (the opposites of a bad egg, `person
> that comes to no good' according to my Concise Oxford) rather than the actual
> eggs found in British pubs.
> 
> I do hope the reading will be extended; a hiatus over the holidays does seem
> a good idea. Thanks, one and all, for your input so far; it hasn't gone
> unappreciated.
>