MDDM Ch. 5: Paranoia: Would history have been different?

[jbor]

on 7/10/01 1:37 PM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

> Does she? 
> 
> Earlier, she objects, on behalf of the children it seems,  to the Gothic
> and
> Ghostly Tower MD.10

She says: "Oh, do not tease them so." Isn't this because Wicks is making up
the bit about the Tower, in order to romanticise his own biography?

> This after  Esthelmer, home from college, says he too,
> would have prayed (Wick's has assured the children that Prayer or
> perhaps a Guardian Angle got the back to port) , but then complains that
> he is surrounded by the pious (certainly Wicks and not so certainly Le
> Spark) and their well-known wishes never to hear anything that sets the
> blood a-racing.MD.30

Not quite. 

    "I should have pray'd," murmurs Cousin Ethelmer, to Tenebrae's mild
    astonishment. (30.12)

And then Meaningful Glances are exchanged in the parlour which seem to speak
volumes. From these it appears to me that Ethelmer is merely putting on an
act to "pollicate" the Rev'd and his Uncle Ives (the latter "less certainly"
because he isn't particularly sure of his footing with Ives, perhaps because
he doesn't know whether he could fool him or because he doesn't know the
extent or sincerity of his uncle's religious convictions). The "I should"
construction contains ambiguity as well: it could be merely an interjection
to emphasise the direness of the situation, it could be sarcastic (but if
either of these were the case I'd expect an exclamation mark), or it could
be just a gentle note of assent, and Ethelmer's way of announcing his
presence (and, Pynchon's way of bringing Ethelmer into the narrative through
"the Doorway"). Note also 'Brae's "mild astonishment" to 'Thelmer's apparent
show of piety, which soon passes when she realises he has been putting it
on. (By the way, her comment at the top of p. 31 appears to indicate that
the attraction between the two of them isn't all one way: "a difficult bit
of double-Back-stitch filling" indeed! His unexpected reappearance certainly
set her heart "'racing'" it seems.)

> Brae objects here, I think, to the notion that the RS is so inflexible.

Yes, but by her show of interest and strategic questioning regarding this
topic she gently encourages the Rev.d to pursue the more secular side of the
tale, and conspicuously ignores his opening conceit that it "was patently
... a warning from Beyond."

best