MDMD(5): Domestick Calamities

[Michel Ryckx]

"This being just one more Domestick Calamity --along with Company
Prices, collaps'd Roofs  and sand in the Soup -- [ . . . ]' "

(Mason & Dixon, 60.4-5)

The joke here is, that the inevitability of Nature is equalled to the
price-setting politics of the V.O.C.  Of course this goes up for
anything that was imported; other prices were set with the usual
invisible hand --take the Mango Party.  Some pages further, roofs will
indeed collapse during a heavy storm. The period is before the Venus
Transit, which took place in june.

Another 'Domestick Calamity' must have been the food.  The description
of a dinner (more details on the 'Mutton-Tail' in next chapter, and on
food in the Southafrican part of the novel in general will follow next
week), while beneath the waist in Elves' (60.13) land --imagine a hidden
camera filming (at 24fps? -sorry, couldn't resist) what is going on
under the table; a play, by the way, everybody should have been playing
at least once in his life.

Johanna and the girls are mentioned; only Cornelius, who does not play
an important role at all, is really introduced. But he seems to be more
of a caricature, or a shadow, than to be a real character.  This is how,
in part, mr. Pynchon depicts the man
-This Nimrod
- Is an admirer of the legendary Botha brothers (Botha being a very
regular name in those parts of the world, remember Pik)
- And a liar when telling hunting stories.

Add to this Pipe & Beard.  Cornelius is Ernest Hemingway without the
booze.

The 'Kaffir's' are one of the tribes in SA.  The word had - has(?) a
very deprecating undertone when used by white.