M&D Ch 20. p.202 Force majeure: Derivatives & Ambiguities

[Jerome Park]

With all their legalese, it's no wonder that Pynchon's novels have
attracted legal scholars. The agreement that Mason makes for the care and
welfare of his sons is not an unusual arrangement for the times. But the
fact that Pynchon juxtaposes the Grief made contract with the going to
America agreement and couches both in the legal term he employs earlier to
characterize the unbreakable contract Mason and Dixon have with their
employer, whoever or whatever that may turn out to be, suggests that
Pynchon is not  merely working off historical documents and history books,
getting things right, historically, but is commenting on the state of
things in the reader's America.

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 1:56 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> i did not know of all the maritime and contract resonances to 'Force
> Majeure"....adds a lot of meaning. I just knew its
> reduced meaning which singles up one meaning...
> Thanks.
>
> On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Jerome Park <jeromepark3141 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > "Force Majeure", like "Inherent Vice", is a legal, often a maritime law
> term
> > that Pynchon enjoys sprinkling about his books with all puns and
> > ambiguities, intended and unintended. in play.
> >
> >  The force majeure clause is employed by Mr. Dixon and Mr Mason after the
> > "Interdiction at Sea" (47).
> >
> > "interdiction" is a fine example, of a legal and military term that
> invites
> > ambiguities
> >
> > In the claim afte the clash at sea, the clause has no force and  is
> easily
> > countered by the RS, not on the facts, or on what is right, or who is
> right
> > and who is wrong, but by force of contract and force of inflexible power
> of
> > a powerful entity over its subordinated workers. Time, as lawyers say,
> is of
> > the essence. Mason and his Partner  are on a schedule and must keep it to
> > honor the contract. . In this case, Time, the common currency of Science,
> > is on the RS's side because the time option has an expiration date and
> the
> > premium in the option is a multiple of the days to expiration.
> >
> > Though Pynchon uses the term several more times in M&D, and in other
> works,
> > the deliberate ambiguity in its use is most apparent when we juxtapose
> the
> > use on 47 with the use here on 202. Here, the force is Mason's then
> recent
> > Grief, now, those who Represent his sons claim, has not the force it had
> > when they agreed to take the lads two years back. In this case, Time is
> > against Mason again, but the time option is reversed, so the longer he
> stays
> > away from his boys, the less his Grief is worth. Now he must pay with
> > something other than his Grief, his force majeure option is expired.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150410/287355a9/attachment.html>