MDDM: Back to Innocence-remembering the experiment

[jbor]

> on 9/17/01 7:44 AM, Judy Panetta at judy at firemist.com wrote:

snip

Thanks for your replies.

Just a couple of quick thoughts. I'm not sure that the distinction between
the "utopian" experiment in Pennsylvania and what was happening politically
in the Republic as a whole still holds at this date (1786), or in the
context of Pynchon's narrative, but I agree that by setting the framing
story in Philly the "Penn's Woods experiment" certainly comes into play in
the key of "what could have been".

I hadn't recalled that "Uncle" Ives was in fact one of the cousins and only
quite young, but now that you mention it I think you're correct that he is
still a (law?) student; even so he is already caught up in the materialistic
mindset of his profession, "desiring to pass the time to some Revenue, if
not Profit." (9) But he is still young enough that he is quickly drawn into
the Rev.d's tale of scandal, though wishing to appear that he isn't
captivated (" ... strictly professional interest, of course", he demurs, but
we know better.) I think it's interesting that as the tale-telling proceeds
gradually more and more of the "adults" from the main house find their way
to this parlour to listen and discuss. The other thing that is worth
mentioning is that the narrator (not Wicks) seems to be on quite intimate
terms with the family (reading Dave Monroe's post it occurs to me that
perhaps it's Mason's ghost?) -- this narrator feels no need to identify or
describe the twins or 'Brae from on objective vantage (age, appearance etc),
or only incidentally does so (as with the cute story of the naming and
contested precedence of Pitt and Pliny) -- and that this also serves to
bring the reader quickly into the family circle thus disclosed. I get the
impression that the twins are about 11 or so, and that 'Brae is older, 17 or
18. I didn't mean that the kids are neglected in material ways, more in
terms of the fact that their thoughts, opinions, aspirations seem to be
being disregarded or regarded with suspicion by their parents.

And I do think that there are deliberate symbolic and/or reflexive portents
in the descriptions of each of the furnishings in this parlour: the card
table with all its hidden compartments and the "Wand'ring Heart" pattern on
its surface with its "illusion of depth into which for years children have
gaz'd as into the illustrat'd Pages of Books" (5) sets up an expectation of
this, and the description of both the mirror and frayed drapes immediately
follows on and both items have quite a long history of self-conscious
novelistic symbolism or allegory. I suspect that there is something going on
with the foodstuffs listed on p. 7 also, just like the way that coffee
percolation is taken up in that image of "the seething Pot of Politics" (6).

It's quite a marvellous opening scene, as we are brought in from the cold
outside: the idiosyncratic voices of these characters come through loud and
clear right from the get-go. I love Wicks' prolixity and bathos, the twins'
bright-eyed exclamations ("Crimes!" ... "The Tower!" etc), 'Brae's wryness
and cool reserve.

best