M&D - Ch 20.

[Elisabeth Romberg]

Said Jerome in an earlier post:
> 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.

Some fine thoughts I think. 

The relationship between Mason and his father is described very subtly, so nuanced during this chapter, my brutish Norwegian will trample all over it.

The first paragraph that gets me going anyway is this (p. 202):
«No, that’s not quite it,» his Father pretends to explain. «I said, that as I’d been paying some of their upkeep all along, all the time their father’s been off touring the Tropic Isles, why the least I ought to have’s a lien on their services, when they’re old enough to work. Young Elroy never knows when I’m joking.»
«Well, were you?»
«Was I what? Paying? of course I was paying. When am I never not? No one else in this family has any money, but by me. I’m the one soon or late you all come to.»
«I meant were you joking.»

We learn that Mason did have a go "at his father’s Ovens» (p. 204) as a  young lad, and also that the father observed in Mason, even back then, that he would rather be someplace else, pulled away by something else.

Mason in turn, terrified of baking? «The unaccounted swelling of the dough» 

Here, by the way, is a rather terrible reconstruction of a long gone windmill in Glouschestershire: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/reconstruction-of-william-champions-site-at-warmley-glouce62945

«What is it you think I do, then, when I’m up staring at the Sky in the middle of the night?» (p. 205) He says this standing/hanging (?) under a sack of flour.
What is the meaning of that?
Is it his «heritage»? or just a place to stand?

The chapter ends terribly sad in a way, really moving. Starting at the bottom of p. 205, it is what his father doesn’t say to Mason… so it’s from the point of view of old Mason:

«What happens to men sometimes,» his father wants to tell Charlie, «is that one day all at once they’ll understand how much they love their children, as absolutely as a child gives away it’s own love, and the terrible terms that come with that,- and it proves to much to bear, and they’ll not want it, any of it and back away in fear. And that’s how these miserable situations arise,- in particular between fathers and sons. The Father too afraid, the Child too innocent. Yet if he could but survive the first onrush of fear, and be bless’d with enough Time to think, he might find a way through….» Hoping Charlie might have look’d at him and ask’d, «Are you finding a way through?»

*wiping away tear*

But in the end of the chapter they really don’t get each other at all.
«Picking up a Loaf and holding it to it’s face. Young Mason thinks he is about to eat it.»
So it all falls to the ground.

> 10. apr. 2015 kl. 18.58 skrev Jerome Park <jeromepark3141 at gmail.com>:
> 
> "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. 

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