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

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> 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?

Yes,  right. I agree. 
> 
> > 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.)

Yes. 


> 
> > 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




Thanks again. I really do appreciate the reply. 
I'll have to take more time to review my own posts before I send them
along. 
After I sent this one I realized I sort of had it backward, but it
wasn't clear to me just how.