re MDDM 35 Christ and History & more

[Doug Millison]

>Chapter 35 opens with an excerpt from the Rev'd Cherrycoke, Christ and
> History.

> I'm curious, and maybe this has been discussed already, but how do these
> excerpts get into the story?  Surely the Rev'd isn't reading them in...
> but they have been added later...by who? Cherrycoke?


The author of the novel, Thomas Pynchon, wrote those bits, along with the
rest of the book.

I still like what Rich wrote about this part of the novel back in the first
group reading:


http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9711&msg=21530&sort=date

From:	RR.TFCNY@[omitted] (RICHARD ROMEO)
Date:	Thu, 20 Nov 1997 16:48 EST
To:	pynchon-l@[omitted]
Subject: MDMD(12)--Commentary


Random Obs on Chapters 35-37

If there is one thing that all three of these chapters share is the shift
of narrative away from Mason & Dixon.  We begin to see the odd assortment
of tricksters, buffoons, sad sacks, religious madmen, etc., that make up
colonial America, including the re-emergence of Reverend Cherrycoke into
the action.  We are introduced, for example, to the Redzinger family, Mr
Edgwise the gambler, and most notably, Armand and his Duck.

The epigraph to Ch 35 and the last paragraph of the chapter bookend
nicely.  In the excerpt to _Christ & History_, History (I guess the same
goes for Christ as well) is defined as being the providence of no man,
only the destination of each journey the common element.  Compare that
with Cherrycoke's quite chilling revelation of what this "Machine", which
underlies all of History in some way, leaves us, namely upon an immensity
that may be all too terrible, where all journey's end--the time that we
can never inhabit and remain sane, infinite space, driverless, infinite
void, where History disappears.  (and what terrible beauty is borne?) All
our prejudices seem pretty petty when all our ends are as common and this
irrefutably sinister and/or frightening.

Moreover, Cherrycoke's observations in _Christ & History_ can be seen as
a direct refutation of the Puritan and consequently, American ideal of
the theory of "exceptionalism", that America somehow is the chosen state,
its path sacred history, different in character from other nations,
history and event, the providence, here among its cities and hidden
valleys, of the one-true God, forever on her side (i.e. the elect),
redeeming the piety America and  Americans so suffer to be one, once
again, later in time, reunited with their creator, repaid for the sweat
and sacrifice for its priceless devotion.  Facts are facts to Puritans
but the younger generation, in the form of Ethelmer, doesn't buy it,
neither does the Reverend, nor Pynchon., I would argue...
And yet, there is still the promise of America, embodied within the pages
of M&D and in the excerpt from _Christ & History_, though the land be
savage, and treachery and madness lay everywhere among its roads, this
place, America, where the other road, that other fork that William
Slothrop takes or imagines America should have taken, can still be taken,
or is at least still locatable among the margins of this fractured
society, within the excluded middles of space and time, among the
vastness (outgrowing its delimiting coats, e.g. the "thermos", the coach,
Lepton's castle later on, each having room for more than the thing itself
can supposedly handle or integrate into its innards, like America, the
belly ever pregnant, always room for many more) that so defines the
American cultural as well as psychological landscapes, as evidenced by
her inhabitants, exiled from every part of the globe, to congregate here,
and make their own nest and have a go at individual redemption, away from
the ignorant stares of old war-torn, balance of power ridden, kingly
slaughter and slavery of Mother Europe.
Pynchon is well aware of the promise denied, the loss of that dream, but
even these little collections of deaths we call a life can never kill the
dream, a myth of promise on such a vast scale.  It continues to this day
and will continue to make this nation great as long as no man, group, or
those in power, intend to hoard the myths of this nation's history and
massage it into  nightmare or an impenetrable  wall from which even our
dreams are poisoned or forever stagnant and locked, fearful of fear and
its recombinant demons.  America is there...go out and find your own
thread, I guess is what I'm saying.

Check out this sentence on pg. 356:  "How might I speak of my true
church, of the planet wide Syncretism, among the Deistick (distrusting
revelation, repudiation of religious intolerance), the Oriental (things
are, no sense change), the Kabbalist (secret knowledge, obtainable
divinity thru investigation, madness), and the Savage (multiplicity of
gods), the Promise of Man...converge.  great chap, that Cherrycoke.
Reinforces the sentiments of _Christ & History_.

Also liked the fact that Peter Redzinger built his church upon roasting
hops. ("Certain herbal essences in massive influxion, as I feel it my
duty to assure her, have long been known and commented on, as occasions
of God-revealing", p.358--Peter some kinda rasta Bud man?)

[...]


http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9711&msg=21626&sort=date

Date:	Sun, 23 Nov 1997 21:24:20 -0800
To:	pynchon-l@[omitted]
From:	millison@[omitted] (Doug Millison)
Subject: MDMD (12) Redzinger


356.23 Redzinger

Anybody but me ever drink Red Zinger herbal tea?  Maybe I'm hallucinating
again (those darn flashbacks) but isn't Celestial Seasonings, maker of Red
Zinger, a company that came out of some 60s communal business, some
Colorado hippies perhaps (very hazy recollection here, I lack Wickes'
Authorial Authority or desire to spin a yarn)? Redzinger's farm and his
evangelizing  carry more than a taste of the 60s commune about them. Or
maybe I'm still bent from reading through those Digger archives. And I love
the bit about the women tending the live plants, the men taking over when
they're dead -- just like they do, or used to, up the coast in Vineland
when harvest season rolls around (where they should just about now have the
dried cones near ready for distribution, if memory serves).


http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9711&msg=21689&sort=date

Date:	Wed, 26 Nov 1997 21:21:15 -0800
To:	RR.TFCNY@[omitted] (RICHARD ROMEO), pynchon-l@[omitted]
From:	millison@[omitted] (Doug Millison)
Subject: Re: MDMD(12)--Notes/Questions


At 4:48 PM 11/20/97, RICHARD ROMEO wrote:
>366.1 `my honey'd Apiary' !!! Also `my Crown of Thorns' at 367.22

Somebody's probably mentioned the similarity before, but it's hard not to
hear W.C. Fields here -- "my mudhen", "my peach", "my little chickadee"

And Wicks (I'll spell it right in this post, I guess, after blowing it
previously this evening) at 352.24 ("I once surviv'd a Fortnight,
Snow-bound," replies the Revd, "upon little else.") really echoes Fields in
"My Little Chickadee" I think it is, where he recalls the time he was
"shooting sheep in the Himalayas, we lost our corkscrew, had to survive on
food and water for several days" (or something like that).