M&D - Chapter 19 - p 193 - Macclesfield and Bradley

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 11.04.2015 13:03, Mark Kohut wrote:
> p. 190....
>
> 'for the living God's a Beast of Prey,"----that ugly Puritanism, again?
>
> "it is the Roman Whore's Time, which let the eleven days be
> stolen".... a Jesuit, etc.
> So, it is the Battle-fields on the earth that have their counterparts in Time.
>
> Are the missing days, among other Pynchonian resonances, an overarching metaphor
> for religious wars?....

To extend the battlefields of revolution to Time was the intention of 
the French revolutionists when they made their republican calendar which 
even undid the structure of the week that was established since 
Babylonian times:

 > The year was not divided into weeks, instead each month was divided 
into three /décades/ of 10 days, of which the final day was a day of 
rest. This was an attempt to de-Christianize the calendar, but it was an 
unpopular move, because now there were 9 work days between each day of 
rest, whereas the Gregorian Calendar had only 6 work days between each 
Sunday.

The ten days of each décade were called, respectively, Primidi, Duodi, 
Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi.<

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-french.html

The French revolutionary calendar is mentioned in 'The Crying of Lot 49' 
(says David Cowart, without giving a page number).

https://books.google.de/books?id=77eNSYr2gsQC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=revolutionary+calendar+pynchon&source=bl&ots=6NZM3Aw2dG&sig=2n7DJHoivLP8Kjb3wlsxK7phhAA&hl=de&sa=X&ei=ABYqVa-8E8SUarPCgYAN&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=revolutionary%20calendar%20pynchon&f=false


> On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Elisabeth Romberg<eromberg at mac.com>  wrote:
>> So the point of view changes, again, and the narrator is now Mason. This carries on till the bottom of the next page, 194.
>>
>> I find the paragraph about how 'Bradley might never have spoken' particularly genius.
>>
>> <<Macclesfield star'd vacantly, his face gone in the Instant to it's own commision'd Portrait,- a response to unwelcome speech perfected by the Class to which he yet aspir'd. Bradley might never have spoken.>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sorry if this is a repetition.
>> My kid started kindergarten this week. Emotional and exhausting by all standards, but all good.
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>

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