MDDM: Ch 33 - "mariform" (332.5)

[jbor]

on 14/2/02 4:38 AM, Scott Badger at lupine at ncia.net wrote:

> I read it as a marine version of "TERRAform"...
> 
> American Heritage: terraform - To transform (a landscape) on another planet
> into one having the characteristics of landscapes on Earth.

There is mention of a "wavelike slope", I guess, so mariform ("mare" = Latin
"sea") does fit. A neologism then, like "apocheir" in _V_ (p. 35)? It
certainly conveys the sense of the land swelling and subsiding (cf. Dolly's
comparison of the "Declination Figures" at 299.18, and Dixon's supposition
about "[s]omething underground, moving Westward...?")

> 
> Wouldn't be the only time that 'another planet' comes up in M&D.

Yes, cf. the beginning of the paragraph and the parenthesis at 331.33. It's
interesting that it's farmer Harland who is now compelled to regard his
field as "some other inhabited World". When the Falmouth Packet arrived it
was as if M & D had arrived at some alien and hostile place (258). Now, with
their "Rituals and Machinery" *they* have begun to colonise, to articulate
the terrain so that it becomes more like their own landscape: "Planet
London" as Dixon wryly observes (with a behind-his-back dig at Mason as
well). Cultural imperialism.

Fits in nicely with the "Brittania's dream" passage at 345.18 also.

best