M&D - Chap 10 - pgs 96-97
Becky Lindroos
bekker2 at icloud.com
Mon Feb 16 16:24:20 CST 2015
Im wishy-washy o, there are lots of layers to the “Who’s narrating this thing anyway and where do they live?” question. I think it’s something to consider as we read through the whole book because the answer seems to be almost like a Russian nesting doll and it changes.
Also interesting - possibly just a rewording - who tells/writes history and is this historian/story-teller reliable? Are there competing voices? Who owns history anyway? The very stuff of historiographical metafiction -
Read and watch and see what happens to narrators in this book - maybe some authorial intrusions.
Becky
> On Feb 16, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Lotsa jargon in this 'academic' discussion....You, Jochen, and Becky
> have been more clearly direct.
>
> Yes, I see them backing up Becky's perspective then adding a lot of
> related stuff...
>
> They say M & D is not "diegetic realism"......seems right to me.
>
> Which is why we are trying to
> find some non-realistic meanings, among other things.....right?
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 1:59 PM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Even nearer to the thoughts of our host:
>>
>> "While in the past Pynchon has toyed with stylistic references to film and
>> television in his narrative techniques, particularly in Gravity's Rainbow
>> and Vineland, in Mason & Dixon he establishes from the outset his narrating
>> voice on the basis of an overt reference to these media, which
>> simultaneously creates the possibility of a radically re-imagined
>> incarnation of the extra-heterodiegetic narrator while also pointing to the
>> necessity that this remains an essentially literary construct that signifies
>> as novelistic, rather than cinemagraphic, narrative. Pynchon is inspired by
>> the technique in film and television (which I will call a narrated
>> flashback) whereby a character begins orally recounting a story, event or
>> situation and their narrating voice fades as the scene in which they are
>> present switches to the scene they are describing, which is then played out
>> according to its own requirements, with the narrator's voice-over returning
>> at certain moments and the scene even switching back occasionally to the
>> original setting for the sake of a discussion or enquiry in that context."
>>
>>
>>
>> 2015-02-16 19:54 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> Thanks jochen...I am going to read this by tomorrow, of course..
>>>
>>> But the quoted words seem to me to be about just what Becky is always
>>> saying....
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 1:48 PM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> It is only now that I did look up the external link provided near the
>>>> bottom
>>>> of the wikipedia page to M&D: An academic dissertation on structure and
>>>> sentiment in Mason & Dixon.
>>>>
>>>> That text is not only free, it's great. And not only because it has
>>>> something to say about the narrators of M&D that seems to come near the
>>>> points I was making in that regard. Especially the pages 63ff. Whoever
>>>> is
>>>> interested in getting to the heart of that matter should read these 10
>>>> or so
>>>> pages dedicated to it. Keeping in mind : "a truism of all reading, is
>>>> particularly useful when reading any of Pynchon's works: trust the
>>>> narration
>>>> without reflecting on it excessively; become immersed in it and stay
>>>> immersed; trust your instincts, because if something, however bizarre,
>>>> seems
>>>> to be happening, it probably is."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2015-02-16 19:31 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>> yes, your perspective convinced me---along with that camera, Becky's
>>>>> camera, back when
>>>>> this first came up. IMHO.
>>>>>
>>>>> Someone else vote or argue?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> The reason I'm saying this now (and I'm open to change) is that I
>>>>>> sense
>>>>>> Pynchon is presenting Cherrycoke as a story-teller and the story he
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> telling is the (hi)story of Mason & Dixon. When we tell stories we
>>>>>> say
>>>>>> stuff like "Once upon a time..." (or "A Jesuit, a Corsican and a
>>>>>> Chinaman
>>>>>> walked into a barroom,") and go on as though we were omniscient
>>>>>> narrators.
>>>>>> That's what I think Cherrycoke is doing and how Pynchon is using him
>>>>>> to show
>>>>>> us that oral/written history is unreliable - he's turning it on its
>>>>>> pointy
>>>>>> head and using anachronisms etc. - (flat out errors?)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This comes up more directly later when in Chapter 11 someone asks
>>>>>> Cherrycoke how he can know what happened on St. Helena considering he
>>>>>> wasn't
>>>>>> there. (He doesn't give any kind of good answer.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pynchon is showing us that history is unreliable because of the
>>>>>> narrators. This isn't "event" history - this is oral/written
>>>>>> history -
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Becky
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Feb 16, 2015, at 7:32 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> And now back to Mason and Dixon at the Cape - where Cherrycoke is
>>>>>>>> back
>>>>>>>> to being our ** unreliable yet omniscient narrator** again -
>>>>>>>> (sounds like
>>>>>>>> an oxymoron but it certainly works) -<
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As I said before, I don't think they are one and the same: There is
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> omniscient narrator who tells us about Cherrycoke who is the
>>>>>>> narrator with
>>>>>>> his limited point of view, who says "I" sometimes, as reliable as
>>>>>>> you and
>>>>>>> me, who is kicked out of the house if he don't behave.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2015-02-16 16:16 GMT+01:00 Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>:
>>>>>>> Moving along -
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *** p. 96 - "A Vector of Desire" - Lacan -
>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_of_desire
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html (I'm sure
>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>> has been posted prior - it's
>>>>>>> "Postmodern Historiography: Politics and the Parallactic Method in
>>>>>>> Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon" by Christy L. Burns )
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Celestial Trigonometry"?
>>>>>>> Are we mapping the skies? Putting the solar system on a grid? Is
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> why Pynchon "started at the beginning?"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *
>>>>>>> "Somebody somewhere in the world, watching the Planet go dark
>>>>>>> against
>>>>>>> the Sun ... (quotes) from Sappho's Fragment 95...":
>>>>>>> "Oh Hesperus, - you bring back all that the dark night scatter'd, -
>>>>>>> you
>>>>>>> bring in the sheep, and the goat, - you bring the Child back to her
>>>>>>> mother."
>>>>>>> (Pynchon uses the H. T. Wharton translation):
>>>>>>> http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/sappho/sape08u.htm
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So what's Pynchon's reasoning in having "someone"
>>>>>>> misread/misinterpret
>>>>>>> the Hesperus, the *evening Venus* as the Transit Venus of the
>>>>>>> morning?
>>>>>>> Showing the idea of misreading? Misinterpreting?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Just prior to that quote there is the line that says this misread
>>>>>>> interruption is "...seeming to wreck the *Ob,*" - the "Ob"? -
>>>>>>> Observation, of course, but which one? 1. It could be the
>>>>>>> observation of
>>>>>>> the Transit itself (perhaps as displayed in the orrery) or 2. it
>>>>>>> could be
>>>>>>> Cherrycoke's observation about it with "Vector of Desire" and all
>>>>>>> being so
>>>>>>> appropriate. - The question is - are our #1 type observations also
>>>>>>> misinterpretations? What does that do to history and/or events?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **
>>>>>>> "A sort of long black Filament yet connects her to the Limb of the
>>>>>>> Sun,
>>>>>>> tho' she be moved will onto its Face..." "This, or odd behavior
>>>>>>> like it, is
>>>>>>> going on all over the World all day long that fifth and sixth of
>>>>>>> June..."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "... as if the Creation's Dark Engineer had purposedly arrang'd the
>>>>>>> Intervals thus, to provoke a certain Instruction, upon the limits to
>>>>>>> human
>>>>>>> grandeur by Mortality."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Satan? Death? This is the first of the pair of Transits - 1761 and
>>>>>>> 1769 - then not again until 1874 and 1882 followed by 2004 and 2012
>>>>>>> and then
>>>>>>> not again until 2117 / 2125.
>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus#History_of_observation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **
>>>>>>> And now back to Mason and Dixon at the Cape - where Cherrycoke is
>>>>>>> back
>>>>>>> to being our ** unreliable yet omniscient narrator** again -
>>>>>>> (sounds like
>>>>>>> an oxymoron but it certainly works) -
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **
>>>>>>> Extra credit resource:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mason and Dixon at the Cape - 4 pages -
>>>>>>> Title: Mason and Dixon at the Cape
>>>>>>> Authors: MacKenzie, T.
>>>>>>> Journal: Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of South Africa,
>>>>>>> Vol. 10, p. 99
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1951MNSSA..10...99M/0000099.000.html
>>>>>>> The clocks and observatory are mentioned on page 100 but also see
>>>>>>> page
>>>>>>> 99 - they're all kind of interesting.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **************
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> p. 97 -
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Zeeman and Vroom households "speed about" getting ready for the
>>>>>>> Transit - the morning is foggy. This is likely the case as per the
>>>>>>> "Journal's Monthly Notes" noted above - p. 99. (So no metaphor is
>>>>>>> necessarily intended, but the possibility should not be excluded.)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Dutch Ado about nothing." - groan - lol - The slaves seem
>>>>>>> somewhat amused by the behavior of "their owners."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ****************
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Please add, subtract, argue, define, categorize, compare, contrast,
>>>>>>> delineate, deconstruct, verify, obfuscate, clarify, etc. as you
>>>>>>> will -
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Becky -
>>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -
>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
-
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