MDDM ch.69: "Tis the Duck Speaking, naturally" [666]

[jbor]

Although, both Dixon and Mason, and Wicks and some of the other minor
characters too, have posed some fairly pointed moral questions at times,
about Indian massacres, slavery, oppression, wars, and so forth. And the
Duck has transcended its "Mechanical" status also, I think. But I get the
impression that the creation of the Line is something which the two
Surveyors've become very protective about, proud of, and it's difficult for
them to distance themselves from it now, even though they have had and do
have doubts about how they've been manipulated by politicians and
landowners, about what the inscription of this scar upon the land might
symbolise, or cause, and even though they understand and can empathise with
the criticisms of it made by people like Zhang and the Native Americans.

I like the way that former certainties are gradually starting to
disintegrate, and the way this is manifesting psychologically (eg. "both
Gentlemen take joy of a brief Holiday from Reason" 675.1-7) as well as
physically (eg. "[t]he Axmen begin to depart unannounc'd,-- as the Army
might say, desert" 663.23) and even in the turning of the seasons. Those who
they meet now seem to be preying on the doubts and fears and ill omens (eg.
when "Mortality at last touches the Expedition" 672.13): Immanuel Ice trying
to scare them witless with his tales and his mythological aura and hoping to
turn a profit from these; Hugh Crawfford seeding Mason's mind with doubts
about Dixon's "Westering" mania; Daniel leading them out to the Warrior Path
to show them first hand the perils which lurk there if they do try to
proceed (675-6); the local farmers trying to exploit the way things are
falling apart (682.28). Everyone else has a vested interest, and the stress
is taking its toll on both Chas and Jere. But their loyalty to one another
remains constant. I get a sense that their bouts of bickering with one
another are a sort of psychic defence mechanism, are perhaps the only thing
enabling them to hold it all together, which they do manage. Just.

best


on 10/8/02 10:30 AM, Bandwraith at aol.com at Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> "Enigmata of the Invisible World" ?
> 
> "Voice unlocaliz'd" ?
> 
> "act[ing] powerfully as a moral Center" ?
> 
> " "What about 'care'? Don't you care?" " ?
> 
> Odd that the narrator, here, would put in the mouth of
> the mechanical Duck the most direct moral questions
> asked thus far in our progress along the line, and then
> add the deliberately reflexive: "or, rather, artificially..."
> 
> The tone is Wicksian, imo, but the whole passage, beginning
> with "Hark! Hark! You wonder?" and terminating with
> "Don't you care?" seems to beg the question- not just
> about the morality of earning one's living by being part
> of a Sha producing "Visto-Engine"- but of any moral which
> might be engendered in any number of audiences, from
> the drawing room to the reader of M&D, by it's telling-
> be it by localized narrator or omniscient (or immanent, for
> that matter}.
> 
> Not to mention, the questioning of the morality of
> "objectivity"- enlightened intellectual curiosity-
> knowledge for knowledge sake, by a very emblematic
> artifact of The Age.
> 
> 
>