M&D - Chapter 21 - Nabob

[Mark Kohut]

Because of Agnew, it is only a joke to me...and safire must have intended it as
a highfalutin' satiric dig......

It IS A PYNCHON-like laugh now (and maybe then)

On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 1:31 PM, Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com> wrote:
> p. 209
>
> Nabob, meaning:
> Somtimes a picture says it all...
> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0EdR8gy0NuM/VJfaCSjPReI/AAAAAAAABOM/3DPP7xmbuDM/s1600/%2BBritish%2Bnabobs%2B8f878ea0803189dcd4867928ffaf1eb9_M.jpg
>
> "An Anglo-Indian term for a conspicuously wealthy man who made his fortune
> in the Orient, especially in the Indian subcontinent. It also refers to an
> East India Company servant who had become wealthy through corrupt trade and
> other practices."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabob
>
> Also an expression famously used by Nixon's speechwriter William Safire in a
> speech by vice-president Spiro Agnew:
> http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Nabobs_natter_about_the_passing_of_William_Safire_1929-2009.html
>
> I am curious to know, what is the contemporary understanding/use, if any, in
> the English language today? What sort of associations does it bring forth in
> you?
>
> --
>
> Elsewhere on the page, from Pynchon wiki:
> Pelhamites
> Followers of Henry Pelham (25 September 1694 - 6 March 1754), a British Whig
> statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743
> until his death in 1754. He was the younger brother of the politician the
> Duke of Newcastle who succeeded him as Prime Minister. From WIKI.
> Placeman
> British- a person appointed to a position, esp. one in the government, as a
> reward for political support of an elected official.
> http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_21:_207-214
>
>
> 12. apr. 2015 kl. 19.13 skrev Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>:
>
> Next paragraph, an imagined dialogue between Mason and his father as Jerome
> points out. Do you agree, though, that the last sentence: <<All subjunctive,
> of course, had young Mason gone to his father, this might have been the
> conversation likely to result.>> is over the top. I mean it's not as if we've
> forgotten it was imaginary from the start?
>
> Don't you feel a little underestimated as a reader?
>
> ;)
>
> 12. apr. 2015 kl. 14.07 skrev Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>:
>
> In the next paragraph we are with Mason an Rebekah, early days.
> We learn how he longs to get away from The Golden Valleys, but what is
> Rebekah's agenda? We got the impression in chapter 18 that something was up
> with her.
>
> (p. 170-171, she new who he was, a star-gazer. But most telling, on p. 186,
> <<A Pair of Gentlemen came to me one day and said, 'Here is the one you must
> marry.'>>)
>
> So it's hard not to have this in the back of the mind when we read about
> their dating and courtship.
> Maybe even explore feelings of sadness for Mason? For being kept in the dark
> by Rebekah?
>
>
>
> 12. apr. 2015 kl. 13.43 skrev Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>:
>
> p. 207
> <<...that the Flow of Water through Nature (...) might be re-shap'd to drive a
> Row of Looms, each working thousands of Yarns in strictest right-angularity,
> (...) nor that every stage of the 'Morphosis, would have it's equivalent in
> Pounds, Shillings and Pence."
>
>
> Stroud is the capital of the south western Cotswolds and located at the
> divergence of the five Golden Valleys (Chalford, Painswick, Nailsworth, Slad
> and Cam), so named after the monetary wealth created in the processing of
> wool from the plentiful supply of power from the River Frome. During the
> heyday of the wool trade the river powered 150 mills, turning Stroud into
> the centre of the local cloth industry.
>
>
> Is this first paragraph about the inhumanity of the working conditions at
> the mills?
> To the benefit of the few?
>
> About the working conditions at the mills:
> http://www.bacuptimes.co.uk/earlydays.htm
> So sad.
>
> Mills today:
> http://plenty.mangoconsulting.co.uk/assets/files/press/2015/Cots%20Life%20Jan%2015%20-%20Stroud%20mills.pdf
> http://www.visitthecotswolds.org.uk/general.asp?pid=22&pgid=822
>
> "Britain from above" showing Fromehall and Lodgemore Woollen Mills and
> environs, in Stroud, 1938:
> http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw059695?name=STROUD&gazetteer=STROUD&POPULATED_PLACE=STROUD&ADMIN_AREA=Stroud&ref=49
>
>
>
>
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