MDMD(5): Biblical References (1)

[Michel Ryckx]

Cornelius, being an admirer of the Botha brothers, those 'Nimrods',
introduces his daughters as Jemimah, Keziah and Kerenhappuch, 'as he
fails, in fact, to be quite Job'.

Well, I must admit, mr. Pynchon here made me read in the bible, for the
first, and I suppose last time in my life.  The text of it is to be
found at www.netbible.com, while the exact location for this quotation
is www.bible.org/cgi-bin/netbible.pl?book=job&chapter=42 with many
footnotes on the way it has been translated.  Chapter 42 of the Book of
Job had on verse 42.12 - 42.17 (skipping the numbers):

"So the Lord blessed the second part of Job's life more than the first.
He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of
oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.  And he also had seven sons and
three daughters.  The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah
and the third Keren-Happuch.  Nowhere in all the land could women be
found who were as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted
them an inheritance alongside their brothers.  After this Job lived a
hundred and forty years; he saw this children and their children to the
fourth generation.  And so Job died, old and full of days."

I will not comment the fact that children are summed up together with
donkeys; instead, the footnotes say (the numbers 25, 26 and 27) that
Jemimah means 'dove', Keziah means 'cassia' and Keren-Happuch means
'horn of eye-paint'.  Anyway, it is quite clear that his daughters are
presented as the ultimate richness..

But Cornelius, poor sod, 'fails [. . .] to be quite Job'.  He is not the
happy man, though maybe well-to-do, as Job was the last 140 years of his
life.

On the other hand, the 18th century settlers at the Cape were not unlike
the 17th century settlers in America: good protestants, god-abiding (at
least superficially), fine merchants.  And slave owners.

Is Thomas Pynchon, when writing about the Cape, writing about the
origins of his own country?

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