MDMD2: double routine

[Terrance]

Paul Nightingale wrote:
> 
> Our introduction to Mason and Dixon is to a double-act; their relationship
> is based on timing. Given that Ch3 is "how they remember'd meeting" - as
> told to the absent Cherrycoke, then relayed to the reader, also absent if
> reader-in-the-text - we might anticipate the traces of a struggle to offer
> an authoritative account. Hence the moments of conflict or, in terms of the
> double-act and its routine, the bad timing. Ch3 then ends, as it began, with
> another double-act: between the narrative and its telling. Again
> Cherrycoke-as-narrator tells the reader: "Something about crazy Frigate
> Captains sailing out of Brest, is all either of them can remember by now".
> What are we to make of this, given that the absent narrator's only sources
> deny any recollection of what the events that have taken place?

Excellent! I like it. I like it. 

I don't know, but, 

Do recall that Wicks says, 

"I was not there when they met,--
 or, not in the usual Way." MD.14

Was he there in some UNUSUAL Way? 
It seems he was. 

The layers of tale telling include, 

What appear to be  nodding in and out of sleep, 

And  a mixing of dream with collected and recollected scraps, 

Ad-lib, and  embellishment, often checked  by Brae's interjections. 

 the moral objective or didactic purpose (Prayer got us through the ship
episode and so on)

this is compounded by a  faulty and broken memory, 

the scraps (the spiritual day book itself a product of Wick's  writing
while exhausted,
perhaps while sleeping), 

 altered states of consciousness (the use of coffee etc.),

hauntings...metampsychosis...

and there is some spiritual transaction
that is suggested here, at least  between Mason and Wicks, they are
haunting each other. 

The dog with his mu Koan is not supernatural, 

 he claims to be a preternatural, naturally or un-naturally selected 
adaptation to the  evolving and devolving Mercy of man. 

 The Mu links the dog to Wicks and to Mason by alluding  to Hindoo
insanity, 

 eventually the dog denies his own existence with age of reason
reasoning, but reminds Mason that are "Provisions for Survival in a
World less Fantastik." 

Could those Provisions include the telling of fantastik tales? 
I am reminded again of Dog Years. The age of reason gone mad (Hitler &
W.W.II), but by telling tales they are able to survive. 

Provisions? The men are much concerned about their provisions. 
Provide? Wicks provides  tales for the children. I guess Dixon is w/o
family, but Mason...mmmmm



> 
> Ch4 then unites Mason and Dixon against Captain Smith. The scene opens in
> mid-conversation. Dixon is only identified here by Mason's response. His
> question ("He wants whah?") immediately puts the reader at a disadvantage;
> as yet, we don't even know what has baffled him. The following line ("Mason
> nodding with a sour Smile") confirms our exclusion. 

Good stuff from old Tom. Kinda like the movies. 


Characters are
> introduced, or introduce themselves, as they speak. 

We meet the Fops, Derek and Algernon. What are they doing in this tale? 
The crowd forms a circle around Derek and Fang, the crowd begins to
wager. 
A cock fight? What is P alluding to here? Scarlet Pimp? Or Wilde Oscar
O' Flahertie? 
Or maybe some sci-fi fops? Lunarians? 






The (explanatory)
> third-person narration has to assert itself with "the Captain's own
> Expectation". Cherrycoke has, as yet, made no appearance as a character in
> the story he relates; his role as narrator is far from secure. His
> appearance ("the helpful young Revd Wicks Cherrycoke") then takes the form
> of interpretation.