MDMD(5): Some Things Incomprehens'ble

[Michel Ryckx]

1. (58.15) 'sepia-shadow'd Her[r]en XVII'.  Does the colour sepia refer
to their faces? Is it a colour used in their robes and other clothing
(but I know they were usually dressed in black).  Is the use of sepia
linked to richness, just as the use of the colour blue some centuries
before was?

2. (59.24) 'English Whiggery'.  Were British manners considered to be
frivolous? (if so, by the way, they are still a long way off Victorian
Values)

3. Jeremiah and Charles stay (or rather: sleep) at the Zeemann house.
But the Zeemanns are never presented.  Why?

4. (60.34) 'narrative rubbish-tip of this Arm-chair commando': I simply
don't understand that.

5. Then there is the Funny Formula at page 61.  Most likely it is the
novel's second koan. I think this because of the use of the MU-letter,
which echoes the koan at 22.8: "A reply given by a certain very wise
Master is, 'Mu'! ".  The scene: it is very early in the morning.  That
the Clock 'having misinform'd him of the Hour', is not unnatural, clocks
not being very exact at the time.  Charles Mason stumbles upon Johanna :
'Resentment [. . . ] appears to be Fascination' (61.2-3).

And now comes the formula with the following components:
- A looking-glass;
- the coefficient of mercy -none has reached .5, as reflected; and
- these are given: the Lensman's Squint; a Stoop; the size of a certain
frontal hemisphere ('ever a source of preoccupation') so, his, to say it
neutrally, embonpoint. [An other one of those Pynchon code words:
mirror]

We know Mason wasn't able to eat when aboard the Seahorse. He must have
then lost some weight.

When I see .5 and fluctuation in one formula, then I think of cosinus
for .5 is the cosinus of PI/3 (when, as any reasonable being, using
radials; others'd say 60 Babylonian degrees).  A belly fluctuating?

My solution does not make much sense: if one cannot see very clearly,
and one is looking in the mirror, the mercy, as reflected by this
mirror, over one's embonpoint, when one is in screaming distance, is a
half (at most).  Not being good at physics in school: what does the
symbol mu stand for in optics for? (I vaguely remember that lambda had
something to do with elasticity)

6. 'Cornelius Vroom [. . .] is an Admirer of the legendary Botha
brothers, a pair of gin-drinking, pipe-smoking Nimrods of the generation
previous whose great Joy and accomplishment lay in the hunting and
slaughter of animals much larger than they.' (60.19-22)

Botha, one of these heavy-laden Southafrican names: I can't find a thing
on 17th or 18th century Botha-Nimrods.  Anyone?

Michel.