MDMD(6): The carnivalesque (2)

[Paul Nightingale]

In Ch9 we are finally allowed to see the astronomers at work; thus far, they
have been as tourists (a form of leisure that isn't carnivalesque). Our
guides are the Vroom sisters and Austra, who "follow Mason one afternoon ...
up onto the first slopes of the Mountain, where they are forbidden ever to
go" (p90). Mason/Dixon will explain to them, and therefore to the reader
also, the nature of their study. The observatory has been located at a
distance from the town: "They are ascended into Africa ... and the Town is a
Spectacle in a Museum of Marvels" (p91). Different ways of constructing the
past and the future are juxtaposed here.

The carnivalesque respects natural cycles (eg the relationship between work
and rest/celebration/consumption). At the Cape, the rainy season is part of
the natural cycle; it will enforce irregular work patterns and, in
particular, liberate the Vroom women from Cornelius' patriarchal gaze (p88).
The weather also challenges the astronomers, who'd like to be elsewhere.
Perhaps it echoes the earlier sea-fight as a what-if: "We'll be lucky to see
the Sun here" (p90). Their observation of a natural event, then, is made
possible by modern technology, but threatened by nature itself (p92). Their
task is to impose science on nature: "One
day, someone sitting in a room will succeed in reducing all the
Observations, from all 'round the world, to a simple number of seconds"
(p93). The future is here constructed in terms of collaborative (scientific)
endeavour, the present only making sense in terms of what is going to happen
subsequently: "That's all? You could stay in England and do that" (p93).

The carnivalesque prioritises a cyclical understanding of time (eg one based
on the seasons). In Ch8 Mason is reluctantly dragged out of bed to go to
market (p84). A narrative moves forward in time; Cherrycoke is stranded and
seeks "distraction in the study of other Lives" (p86). His narrative will
impose retrospective order. This, the end of Ch8, seems to be the point
where he has decided that he will be an unofficial biographer. This decision
is an attempt to fill the space created by irregular work patterns (ie ships
arrive when they do and not a moment sooner).