MDDM Ch. 8 Mangoes

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> I think it's more to do with characterising Wicks as somewhat of an
> irritating nitwit at this point. As Michel pointed out it's as if there are
> three reverends, the older man in the parlour earning his keep by amusing
> the kids but relishing his role as raconteur even so, the young gossipy
> buffoon he was at the time of the tales, and the brooding pessimist revealed
> in the journals.
> 
> There's a fourth reverend as well I think, that heroic renegade who was
> posting anonymous accounts of "Crimes [...] committed by the Stronger
> against the Weaker" (9) back in England, telling truth to power as it were.
> But of the four this is the only one that I envisage as Wicks's attempt at
> self-characterisation within the text.

I don't see how the Mangoes and Transubstantiation have *more* to do
with characterizing young Wicks.   In this Mango scene and at the end of
the chapter where we  have Cherrycoke's journal entries,
transubstantiation, specifically the Masons (Charles and the father the
Baker) is foregrounded. Note as well, that the scene begins with
Cherrycoke's  failure to go East.  As far as the agricultural science
goes, Pynchon may not get the Mangoes quite right, but in terms of its
religious symbolism he does. 



The Mangoes are a cross-cultural symbol of fertility and christ. 



	Wicks wants to sail east
	Dixon wants to walk west
	And  Mason is flies over the cuckoo's  nest?