MDDM Chapter 44 Rose Quartz

[Terrance]

Terrance wrote:
> >
> > Imo, there are no allusions to Christ on these pages either, and the "green
> > Resurrection" metaphor is used in a pointedly non-Christian context, and
> > used thus by a narrative voice which is not Wicks nor any other of the
> > characters in the novel. (I can see no references to the 1794 Mutiny off
> > Spithead or coal-miners' strikes here either.)
> 
> OK, I'll have to work on these a bit more.

What I have thus far will only confuse matters. Recall that I searched
out that Pynchon "mistake" or anachronism about the hero and champion
rower,  Henry Clasper (1812-1870) and the Slowcombe connection to
Astronomy, music and the Duke. 

http://gazzalw.tripod.com/halloffame.html#D




Well, it's tied in like that too, and again,  P has either made a lot of
errors or has deliberately mixed things up (I think the latter is the
case)-- coal, rowing, mutiny, coal ships, pitmen, pubs, union labor,
weaving, sport, gaming, gambling,  boxing, cock fights, vs war and
kings, an obvious enough theme in the novel, but the facts are very
difficult to dredge up. I suspect that the newspapers might be a source
and the local historical records and minutes. In both GR and V., 
Pynchon
gets details and the like from the newspaper.  As we know, he
deliberately searches for the obscure or marginalized tale or figure. We
won't find this stuff in a general encyclopedia. And I
agree, the reader is not supposed to know that it was good friday on
April 5th. We
don't need to know this at all. It's not an important fact or key to
anything. It's only a game we can play or not. 


The Stone from the Stars
Wolfram von Eschenbach



http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/gnosis/wolfram.html


"This miraculous immunity from physical decay...was ascribed to the
      followers of Brân the Blessed as they spent eighty years on the
island of
      Grassholm, and has been carried down into the Arthurian romances
and
      applied to those who formed the household of the Fisher King."
      Wolfram's "originality and genius also appear in his statement
that the stone
      owed its powers to a mass-wafer deposited on it every Good Friday
by a
      dove descending from heaven. This, we may well believe, is a
deliberate
      alteration of Chrétien's concept of the Grail as a receptacle for
the Host - a
      concept first set forth by the hermit on Good Friday. It also
embodies a
      eucharistic doctrine which can be traced back to the fourth
century, namely
      that it is the Third Member of the Trinity [the Holy Spirit] who
descends on
      the bread and wine at the celebration of the mass and changes them
into the
      body and blood of the Second Member [the Son]."
           - Roger Sherman Loomis, The Grail, From Celtic Myth to
Christian
      Symbol 

"Interestingly, there is a Eucharist Legend dating from the 11th century
      which shows great similarity with the accounts of Anfortas
[confined to
      sitting in a chair in the Grail castle] and his daily feeding with
the Host: a man
      was trapped in a cave near Clavennas. After a prolonged search,
all attempts
      to rescue him were abandoned. It was not until a year later that
another
      attempt was made, to look for his bones, and the man was found
alive. He
      told his astonished friends that every day, a dove-like bird had
brought him a
      small offering of white bread, which had refreshed and
strengthened him
      through its delicious taste. The bird had missed only one day, and
on that
      occasion he had suffered dreadfully from hunger. In fact, his
wife, believing
      him dead, had a Mass said for him every day. Only once was she
unable to
      go to church, due to the winter cold, and that was the very day
that the
      prisoner had gone hungry.
      "It is not difficult to imagine that legends like these might have
inspired
      Wolfram to write of the white dove that brought a Host to the
grail every
      Good Friday."
           - Johannes and Peter Fiebag, The Discovery of the Grail,
translated from
      the German by George Sassoon