MDMD(5): Chapter 7 - Summary (1)

[Michel Ryckx]

The chapter's first paragraph begins in a dreamy, vague atmosphere:
- 'trying to remember' (58.1),
- 'hasty dream' (58.3),
- 'a sea holding scant color' (58.4),
- 'unreadable Map-scape' (58.5),
- 'unaccountably emerg'd' (58.5),
- 'haunted and other half of ev'rything known' (58.8),
- and above all: 'every detail, including the Invisible' (58.13); et
j'en passe,
as Mason and Dixon arrive at the Cape.

It was Winter when they left Plymouth; now it is the Fall (we're in the
southern hemisphere - seasons are antipodean) of 1761.  The V.O.C.
immediately begins to cast its shadow in the person of  a 'Police
Official' (59.26), Bonk, who makes things clear: 'As there is nowhere to
escape to, 
' (59.7) and who does not like the way Mason introduces
themselves: Mason nearly goes too far and instantly becomes a 'Person of
Interest' (59.31).  He'll get filed.  And so is Dixon: not for being
suspicious, only for being Mason's colleague.

The defection of the Zeemann kitchen slaves, having become Drosters,
force them to eat at the Vroom house.  The father has 'what seems like
seven, and is probably closer to three, nubile daughters' (60.10-11).
Their names and ages: Jet, 16; Greet, 'in between' and 'Eternal
Mediatrix' (62.23); and Els, 'a mere twelve' (62.26)), which makes the
Astronomers, well, horny -- Mason In Blood, Dixon In Phlegm.  Cornelius,
the father, is an indomitable hunter, and teller of hunter stories.  One
morning, Mason meets the wife, Johanna, which causes a funny formula.
Their manipulation has begun.

Dixon is considered by the Dutch population as not to be trusted for of
his interest in Black slaves and Malays; now they are both isolated
--Mason distrusted by the authorities, but appreciated by the Dutch
settlers because of  his 'Melancholick look' (61.32).

Jet, Greet and Els, affected by their hormones and mainly using as
seducing method their hair, woman's most public ornament, are guarded,
or so he thinks, by their jealous & paranoid father Cornelius [--'
"Sin," by which he means Lust that crosses racial barriers'
(62.35-63.1)]  who gives the impression of being a stranger in a strange
land 'by the steadfast Gravity [sic] of all Africa' (63.14).  The girls
are trying to make a move on poor Charles, interrupted by Johanna who
takes a look at his erected penis and makes a rather good Joak about
It.  That night, she sends a slave, Austra, to his bedroom whom he ought
to 'impregnate': mixed bred means a higher price for slaves.  Mason is
shocked and refuses it: 'And Damme, she's off'. (66.7).  The next day:
'Passion, finding a Target, to make use of him, 
' (66.20).  Mason hopes
the night will be cloudless, in order to observe, torn between a lust he
does not want to acknowledge, and his revulsion of slavery.

As usual, Dixon, man of the world, has seen everything, but 'does his
best not to mention it' (66.36).  Mason asks Dixon wether he's able to
find a potion to put in his hostess's soup.  Their conversation is very
well worth to become a classic:

'They are not as happy, nor as childlike, as they seem," he tells
Mason.  "It may content us, as unhappy grown Englishman, to think that
somewhere in the World, Innocence may yet abide, --yet 't is not among
these people.  All is struggle, --and all but occasionally in vain."
(67.12-16).

And thus mr. Pynchon, or the Reverend (the novel's own Stencil?), or
Dixon smashes in a small paragraph Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the idea of
the Noble Savage,  whilst referring to Heraclitus (who will be echoed in
Hegel's works a bit later) and discrediting the 'vanitas vanitatum' of
Book of Job.

The next paragraphs we see Mason looking for the magic potion, an
'Indifference-Draught' (67.29), which gives us the occasion of having a
glimpse on the Cape's own preterite (the V.O.C.'s own preterite), the
slaves, who happen to live in a world largely unknown to the white
settlers.  Johanna continues to play her game, of which the essence is
'the Slavery, not any form of Desire' (68.22), for it is just a question
of higher market value.  Mason is quite sensitive to that, as opposed to
Dixon's attitude: he sees the 'Obsession or Siege' [sic] (68.25), and
the Cape has 'a Collective Ghost of more than household scale, -- the
wrongs committed Daily against the Slaves' (68.30-31 ), ritualized
through the Company's 'many-Volum'd Codes' (69.1).  This Ghost,
permeating all and everything makes Mason 'morose' (69.7), while Dixon
is more courteous to the slaves than to the settlers.  Once again:
isolation: are they at 'another Planet' (69.19)?

Is there a way out? A question previously (1973) left unanswered, gets a
yes: 'of Mathematickal Necessity there do remain [. . .] routes of
Escape [. . .] (69.29-30 ).  And they act accordingly: these two
outsiders, sometimes even strangers to each other -- see the small
quarrel at 69-70 -- will 'be carefree Mice for a few Hours, at least . .
.' (70.7)

[to be continued]