MDDM Ch. 25 "the Company Perimeter"

[jbor]

Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

snip
> I get the feeling that Dixon is less blaise and more
> attempting to downplay his lack of sophistication in such
> matters.

Though, again, he is the one who pulls out the conversational trump card:

"What would Jews have requir'd of them, that Dutchmen would not?" (152.16)

This observation is both wry and astute to my reading, and it certainly
throws into sharper relief what might be *latent* anti-Semitism in
Maskelyne's and the Royal Society's thinking and motivations.

> It is also interesting to once
> again note Pynchon's indirectness w/r/t complicated
> issues like anti-semitism. That is, the narrator takes pains
> to let the reader know that it is Mason who is detailing
> Maskelyne's apparent anti-semitic take on competitive
> global trade issues, as Mason is both condescending to
> Dixon and putting Maskelyne down, making it that much
> more difficult to discern who has the moral high-ground.

I don't know that this is really any more or less "indirect" than anything
else in the text: like the explicit anti-Jesuit, anti-Catholic, (and
anti-Dutch, anti-French etc) sentiments that Pynchon, through Wicks
generally, it needs to be added, puts into the mouths and brains of various
of the characters. In fact, I'm not even sure it can rightfully be called an
anti-Semitic "take" at all by comparison with some of the other diatribes.
But, doubtless, remnants of those sentiments from previous centuries in
Britain which had brought about pogroms against Jews, and the outlawing of
Jewish religious ceremonies, still prevailed in the mid-to-late 18th C.

I think Maskelyne's explanation is less to do with anti-Semitism per se than
it is to do with realpolitik. The current state of decline of "the Turkey
Company's" market share and sphere of influence in the Middle East and India
would have meant a more "complicated" debt had Mason and Dixon been deployed
to Scanderoon. That is, the favour might have been at the price of certain
trade concessions or obligations, which in turn probably would have brought
the Royal Society, and the British Crown, into direct conflict with Clive's
East India Company. As for the Dutch, on the other hand, well, I'm again
inclined to agree with Dixon.

PS Though I think that it's probably hypothetical rum, or gin, there in
Dixon's hypothetical bootstrap, the other literary echo I'd note at this
point is of Joseph Heller:

"There's the Catch, of course," Dixon pretending to be calm. (253.4)

best