MDDM Chapter 44 "a haze of green Resurrection" (441.2)

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> Terrance wrote:
> 
> > "Why, the Collier sailors belive 'tis bad luck...?" Dixohn replies..."it
> > being the day of Christ's Execution."   MD.26
> 
> Yes, "Dark Hepsie, Pythoness of the Point" elicits this response from Dixon.
> She then says "Thus does your Captain Smith disrespect Christ, Fate, Saint
> Peter, and the god Neptune" and tells them their journey is an ill-starred
> one.
> 
> On the next page Dixon reminds Mason that they're "Men of Science":
> 
>     To huz must all days run alike, the same number of identical Seconds,
>     each proceeding in but one Direction, irreclaimable...? If we would have
>     Omens, why, let us recall that the Astronomer's symbol for Friday is
>     also that of the planet Venus herself,-- a good enough omen, surely...?"
>                                                                 (27.20)
> 
> Then Hepsie actually presages what does happen when the Seahorse sets sail.
> A sorceress, she sees into the future. Not a particularly Christian moment,
> I would have thought.
> 
> So, those mentions aren't really about Christ at all, are they? Or only in a
> very flippant and off-the-cuff way. It's more about Mason finding Rebekah in
> the afterlife, the omens for their voyage, superstition, the spooky
> supernatural etc.

We have a very different view of Christianity, I guess.  Mason (in fact
his duties as Verger in the Church are directly associated with Peter) 
is a Christian and the Priestess reminds them that their voyage on a
Friday is disrespectful of Christianity and St Peter. Superstition and
the supernatural and consulting a priest or priestess is what a
Christian or a religious person does prior to taking a voyage on a ship.
While Pynchon may seem to set witches against Puritans (the obvious
historical and even biographical facts) he doesn't. Religion is spooky
stuff. 

 There are all manner of ironies at play here. The scientists consult a
Priestess after talking with a D-O-G in the age of Reason.  Mason has
been talking with a D-O-G, an LED, a free English Dog entertainer (some
of the ironies are not obvious till later in the book when, for
example,  we read about Mr. Washington's man, Gershom and this example,
sailing on a Friday and setting out on the Line on Good Friday) and he
is anxious to get on a ship because he has determined that getting on a
ship will cure his excessive mourning and provide some connection to his
dead wife. 

 I agree completely with both you and John about what Pynchon has done
here. I'm only attempting to add to this point. One of the books in this
big book in chronological--Mason's Journal and the
historical/biographical facts of Dixon and Mason. However, we are now
400 odd pages into the book and we have only just started down the
famous line. And we start down it on Good Friday. The boys don't need to
consult a Priestess. Why not? Because they have a priest with them.
Where is the RC? 

And of course it is about Christ because they sail on Friday. And every
sailor from every part of the world, whatever his religion, believes it
is bad luck to sail on a Friday. Christians, as both the Priestess and
Dixon remind us, believe it bad luck because to sail on a Friday is a
violation both of Fate and Faith and because Friday was the day Christ
was executed. All the reasons for not sailing on a Friday, the reasons
given by Christians and sailors of every other religion  are
superstitious, religious, spooky. In fact, the superstiiton is older
than Christianity and was simply applied to Good Friday. Like, there
were twelve apostles and one god man and that makes 13.  So, the
priestess tells them that the Captain is disrespecting religion,
superstition, the spooky.

 And it's obviously about Christ because she mentions both Christ and
the Pilot of the galilean lake--St. Peter. And she has made no
distinction, as you are doing here, between the Christian superstition
and the general spookiness of other religions because she says the
Captain disrespects Christ, Fate, Peter and the god Neptune. What jumps
out at me here is not Christ or Neptune, both obvious reasons not to
sail on a Friday, but Saint Peter. 

> 
> > "All thah' Coal-Mining, I guess." MD.42
> >
> > He doesn't fancy or imagine, but guess.
> 
> Yes, another familiar conversational tag.

Yup, that's one way to read them. 

Yes, and Dixon and Mason have been discussing what happened to them
after they sailed on a Friday out of Spithead. They got caught in a
transit of Mars and not Venus as 
Dixon predicted, flippantly. Actually, the chapter opens with them
discussing "HIM."
But, while Mason thinks that they got caught in an act of God,
God'surpose and design, Dixon, flippantly, questions if by HIM Mason
means either God or the Devil. But we have been through that one
already. HIM is GOD and Christ. And, Dixon and Mason, after having that
frightful experience, coming face to face with death, turn to HIM before
they turn to more earthly conspiracies and turn on each other.  Mason
looks for HIS purpose or design in the battle, while Dixon looks for HIM
in Mason. Both are perfect examples of superstitious and religious and
specifically Christian, more precisely Anglican and Quaker, responses to
the mysteries of Life and Death. 

Even the RC (the younger) had turned away from HIM  and was reading from
the Stoics. The elder RC says prayer and an Angel got them through, but
there is a third voice in there as well, partly Mason haunting RC and
that third narrative voice that provides an ironic distance between the
RC and the implied author. This ironic voice, I think, is very close to
the author and reading this voice as dismissive of religious
superstitions is a mistake imho. 


Of note here too is the fact that this is the first example of Mason
attributing a superstition to Dixon and his people. That is, when Dixon
says he is unsure which "HIM" Mason is talking about (Mason is obviously
talking about GOD), Mason assumes that Dixon is not sure if "HIM" is God
or Satan. It's not clear that this is what Dixon meant at all. In fact,
the conversation turns to a discussion of men and not gods. 





> 
> The point I was originally making about the use of the phrase "a haze of
> green Resurrection" in the current chapter was that it refers to a new
> beginning - spring has been celebrated as a time of rebirth in many cultures
> across the ages, but it's also the "beginning" of the story that we should
> have expected the novel to tell, the beginning of the "plotting" of the
> Mason-Dixon Line. It's the fact that this "beginning" occurs on page 444
> which John admitted to being a little upset by on first reading. I think
> Pynchon is well aware of the upset, indeed, that he meant it, and that this
> is why he uses this particular metaphor.

I agree. 


> 
> If it is a reference to the fact that they set out on Good Friday then it
> doesn't make much sense to me, seeing as Christ's Resurrection happened on
> the Monday. The reason "sailing from Spithead" is given as the example is
> that that was the place the Seahorse left from at Portsmouth, also on a
> Friday, and that journey was an ill-fated one.

Quite right, the haze of green resurrection is present prior to their
setting out in fact. So, the haze of green resurrection is a natural
phenomenon. In fact, as fate or the gods would have it, if you walk into
a wood in Pennsylvania right now this is exactly what you will see--a
haze of green resurrection. However, I doubt that it is only me reading
Christ into that green haze. Christ has long been called the green
resurrection and Pynchon, we know for a fact, knows all about this. 

So what is  interesting here, is not only that we are 400 odd pages into
the book and we are only just starting down the line and that Pynchon
decides to include the Good Friday start date (calculatedly notes the
recorded date, April 5th) and not mention that it is in fact Good Friday
but hat he describes the world as viewed or sighted by Dixon and Mason
and crew, as a haze of green resurrection. And, the text says, 

"the least auspicious day of the week" and reminds us to look back to
the ill-fated voyage off Spithead. When we look back to that scene we
find a priestess warning the boys that the Captain disrespects the gods,
Christ, St. Peter, Fate, by sailing on a Friday. So the connection is
clearly made by the text. 


> 
> I think it's very noteworthy that Pynchon *doesn't* address the Easter angle
> in the text. In fact, I'd imagine his use of the term "Resurrection" in such
> a pronouncedly secular/pagan context is quite instructive. 

Agreed. 


And, even if not
> mentioning that it's Good Friday *were* simply an oversight or failure of
> research on his part, it's still noteworthy I believe.


It's not an oversight or a failure of research. Also, while I've
provided only flimsy evidence that Pynchon also researched the Mutiny
off Spithead (the union theme) and the coal miners strikes and the
entire labor theme here, I think it's is worth looking into, only I
don't have the time. There were the Mahoney brothers of little
christiana or there abouts, coal miners who struck and received letter
bombs on good friday, exploded and killed them on Easter Sunday. 

> 
> best
> 
> ps Not really able to elaborate right at the moment, but I wouldn't rely too
> heavily on Weisenburger's schema regarding the dates in _GR_.

Thanks again, 

Terry 

When you believe in things that you don't understand,
Then you suffer, Superstition ain't the way, no, no, no.

Mary wants to be a superwoman
And try to boss the bull around
But does she really think that she will get by with a dream

There's a ribbon in the sky.....Do...Do...Do Do Do Do Do Do DO DO Do di
di do dot dum
...HMM HMM...