M&D - Chapter 10, (a few annotations)

[Becky Lindroos]

I have no idea as to why the sermon was “unpublished,”  but it likely wouldn’t have been because of the science/religion metaphor. 

For Rev. Cherrycoke to see God’s hand in the organization of the cosmos and draw a sermon from it wouldn’t have been unusual or controversial.  It still isn’t really.  I suppose he was Methodist or something like it - same as Mason?  The deists and later clock-work folks were even more interested in Natural Philosophy. .   (The only problem between science and religion I see is with evolution and maybe global warming.) 

Great 17th century map of the Celestial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy#mediaviewer/File:Planisphæri_cœleste.jpg

Becky 


> On Feb 16, 2015, at 3:34 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Why is Cherrycoke's sermon unpublished?
> 
> Why is that wonderful set of metaphors
> of the great chain of being (maybe), the harmony of the universe with
> the West's
> major religious beliefs.....in which as Becky notes Gravity is
> mentioned....God's
> Gravity....a world in which all the Planet's know where the Sun that
> is God is....
> 
> I suggest because he had his doubts even before he defrocked himself.
> 
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 11:11 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>> Continuing in the chapter -  (chapters are approximate because I'm reading on a Kindle app)
>> 
>> Following the sermon the text gives us Cherrycoke reporting on the activities of the family as they retell and play out the story of the 1761 Transit of Venus.
>> 
>> p. 94:
>> "Orrery"
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrery
>> 
>> Jules Verne's:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlgyXY3vPd4
>> 
>> At Christies's for only $37,098 an 18th century orrery/tellurian:
>> http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-boxed-american-orrery-and-tellurian-set-5480154-details.aspx
>> 
>> "Tenebrae" - in Latin means shadow or darkness) - reminds Ethelmer of his darkness in the innocent light of her youth.  (Not sure what the illuminated nostril suggests.)
>> 
>> ** Are these two kissing cousins?  Or was there some kind of abuse involved at some past point?
>> 
>> ********
>> p. 95 -
>> "...having travers'd the Sea"
>> Traverse is the family name in ATD and Vineland. Metaphor, fer sure. For more, see ch. 3, p. 14
>> 
>> "Nessel" - is fictional but the discovery of a new planet is real - Uranus - 1781.
>> "Georgian"  -   Herschel first reported the discovery of Uranus ("Georgian")  on April 26, 1781, initially believing it a comet.[12]
>> 
>> **  and from Otto's page at http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/md/md10.htm
>> "This reminds me of another "new planet" in another novel by Pynchon, "(...) The new planet Pluto (...)." (GR 415)
>> 
>> Nessel (fictional?) provided Uranus for the Orreries to make sure they were updated.  And for extra realism he pasted map pieces on it - Mappemondes - (a two -hemisphere map),  but that won't really work because flat maps don't conform to their three-dimensional realities.
>> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mappemonde#mediaviewer/File:Delisle_-_Mappe-Monde.png
>> 
>> 
>> Solar Parallax:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax
>> 
>> Any parallax is a triangle - which by definition has 3 sides - a Jesuit, a Corsican and a Chinaman - fwiw and whatever that's about - etc.
>> 
>> Bek-
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l