MDDM: Chapter 48 "Yet, Geomancer, beware,-"

[jbor]

on 17/4/02 10:12 AM, CyrusGeo at netscape.net at CyrusGeo at netscape.net wrote:

> "I got the impression that this whole passage of text is addressing an
> (implied?) reader, also nominated as "Geometrickal Pilgrim" (469.24), all
> the way down to 470.28. I don't think it's Wicks narrating here either."
> 
> Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I still can't figure out why he uses the word
> "geomancer".

I think in this (figurative, reflexive) context it relates to the way that
the (implied) reader will attempt to make meaning by trying to line up the
scattered dots of the text which have been cast down like a handful of earth
before her or him. When connecting them in one pattern, or looking in one
direction only, it all seems neat and "symmetrickal" (cf. Brae's demur at
483.16), but turning just an "Eye-lash's Diameter" introduces "Anomaly" into
the particular scene. In the same way that "the notorious Wedge" harbours
"an Unseen World" which defies what "one may imagine almost sensibly" is
happening in the social formation of the new colonies, this "Geomancer", or
interpreter of the text's "meaning", needs to "beware" of the other, perhaps
conflicting, forces and undercurrents driving the text which he or she might
not be noticing.

But there're probably other ways of interpreting the term, particularly in
regard to the alchemical imagery which figures throughout the novel.

best