MDMD(6): Chapter 8 - Summary

[Michel Ryckx]

The previous chapter, bathing in an atmosphere of isolation, attempts at
sex and eroticism, a bit of magic and lots of control; boundaries all
along the place and amongst the people at the Cape, concentrated mainly
on the Vroom family and how Charles Mason reacted to it: his unambiguous
abhorrence of the white settlers and their 'codes', his melancholy,
contrasted with the way the Vroom family behaved.

Now, with Jeremiah Dixon we step into chapter eight and encounter, once
again, another world: the world announced by Dixon on 69.29, "of
Mathematickal Necessity there do remain, beyond the reaches of the
V.O.C., routes of Escape, pockets of Safety, [. . .]".  It is a nightly
world which attacks the senses: there is wind from the North ('Etesian),
and different kinds of music --it makes him whistle--.  Then the people:
all kinds of them, none of them settlers.  He is offered dagga, gin,
ketjap from Indo-China.  Dixon develops a 'nasal map of the Town', able
to decipher according to his nose.  There's a curfew, which makes him an
Outlaw and he feels like a "predatory animal" (78.10).  The 'Sensorium'
(77.2) under siege, the night: Dixon is quite at ease.  But the
Boundaries are still there: as the non-settlers are enjoying life,
"these Dutch carry on as Judgment be near as the towering Seas and
nothing matter anymore [. . .]" (78.17-18)

(By the way, I have the impression that chapter 7 and 8 occur
simultaneously: in both chapters there's talk of the impossibility to
observe at night.  Anyone?)

Shift to the Vroom house.  Mason still involved in Jet's and Greet's
unchildish play.  And off to diner.  These Dutch close the front door
when they start eating!  Cornelius, in clouds of smoke, disapproves the
use of the ketjap and "attacks his slice of the evening's mutton in
Tail-fat" (79.19-20) --if he's a good hunter, why not eat Springbok; but
no, they stick to their Mutton, even if they don't like it.  Even when
delicacies can be bought.  But "this too will pass" ((c) K. Vonnegut)
and the Vroom family goes outside and sit in front of the house.

The Reverend then explains from 80.5 --> 80.23 what is really going on
between the white youngsters: attraction, seduction, and looking for
"Boundaries there to be o'erstepped" (80.20).  This is illustrated by a
serenade brought by Wim (Dutch, short for Willem) on a Fiji guitar,
introduced on the Islands by the Jesuits two centuries ago.  But , the
V.O.C. is trying to maintain control over the sex industry, and even
then, there are Routes of Escape . . .

The astronomers, fed up with the Vroom food, leave the house, and are
being followed by Greet, who reports back, in a song what they do: "They
wander about, eating and talking." (82.15), and she sings about it.  The
girls can't imagine why they would do that, thus illustrating the fact
they live in a world separated from the slaves.

And the senses are once again attacked: follows a depiction of a cook
and what he does, the Krees this time not being offered to Death as in
the previous chapter, but being used as kitchen knife. The cook knows
Jeremiah --and the Mangoes will be ripened tomorrow.  Next day, this
causes a "Panic" (84.27).  They meet the Reverend.  Mason is acting
quite hostile towards Wicks, while the latter keeps his good mood.
Evolves a conversation on sheep, with some theological implications in
it.  The Reverend will admit in his writings his curiosity in other
lives, here at the end of the world.

 Michel.
(who has been begging the main frame last night he (not: it) would start
up again.  Never say I'm not a religious man)