MDDM 35 Christ and History

[Terrance]

Ives is answering a question. My guess is that the question begins with
the word "HOW." It might be something like this-- 

How does one go about discovering what happened if one was not there?
Like if you go and look at the site of a massacre and try to
reconstruct, as a detective or historian might, what took place. 

RC is the author of Christ and History. 
This is what we read in the book, in the postscript. 
And, while I'm not certain how the passage on Christ and History fits
in, I'm convinced it does and I can't simply disentangle RC's Christ and
History from the rest of the discussion in the Chapter, let alone ignore
what that  Postscript says, the RC wrote this as **Christ** and History. 

Why is Herodotus the God-Father of all, in his refusal to utter the name
of certain Egyptian Deity? 
This is one of the the keys.  What else does Herodotus say about this
certain Deity? And about the cult of this God and History and Time and
Sin and the soul and eternity? 

What about Edward Gibbon? Why mention him? He is a very important key to
understanding history in the novel V. As is a certain Roman Catholic
mystic (Joachim De Fiore, BTW, Pynchon includes over thirty RC mystics
in the novel V., and many here in M&D, a few Protestants too, like Fox
the Quaker). Baron Munchausen is almost too obvious, isn't it? Published
just around the time of RC tales, anonymously of course. 
Captain John Smith? What great adventures he had. I think a bunch of
paranoid Catholic Pilgrims tossed him into the sea. Jack Mandeville?  





Did he read it to the listeners? 
I suspect he did. When? Don't know. But there  is a lot we don't know
and a lot we are unlikely ever to know or know for sure here. Like, what
is RC denomination? Someone, I think Judy, said that some of the family
appear to be French, possibly  Huguenot.

RC  is certainly close to Augustine theologically. In fact, at times he
seems closer to the Calvinist reading of Augustine, a  Jansenist or a
Huguenot. But he may be a Catholic, even a Jesuit.  Unlike some, I don't
read this novel as anti-Catholic or Anti Jesuit.  RC and the other
narrators have been satirizing the absurd paranoid anti-jesuit and
anti-Catholic politics. 

In Chapter One we read that Wicks is using a Notebook. 

The veracity and the usefulness of that Notebook, like the Notes
(Stencil Sr.'s stuff) and so on that Stencil uses in V. is called into
question and at times undermined at several points in the book. RC
Stecilizes the Tales and the listeners interrupt him and cause him to
change the tales or certain "facts" from time to time. The Rev. is old,
he falls asleep while telling tales, he did not keep a very complete
record of his adventures because he also fell asleep or was simply too
tired after a days journey to write. He exaggerates his own exploits, he
contradicts himself or the notebook or other records that have become
part of the tales Mason's field book), he gets drunk, he says he has
some moral or didactic objective--to teach the children, but he is,
after all,  a family outcast, may in fact be insane (he is haunted by
Mason's Ghost and has actually been haunting Mason) and he is singing
for his supper or telling tales to entertain the kids so that he may
have a roof over his head. The kids have influenced the tale by
requesting it in the first place and by stipulating that Indians and
French be included. And, Otto asks, is he a Revd after all? Call me
Ishmael? He tells us that he is something of "Tourist" (V.)  in
disguise--a parsonical disguise (disguise means Jesuit, is Wicks a
Jesuit?) Or is he a jesuit: One given to subtle casuistry. It is  RC who
tells us  most of these things about himself prior to telling the tale.
And it is Brae (the Dark Mysterious Candle Light) who calls Wicks on
this, as she will continue do. On top of all this, RC is one hell of a
tale teller. Isn't he? They guy can spin a yarn!