M&D - Chapter 11 pp 105-106

Fri Feb 20 11:09:12 CST 2015

>And from Joseph earlier (thank you!) :
Euphrenia was an ancient goddess in the region of Holland ( see wikipedia),
she was often accompanied by a dog. Whether it was a talking dog appears
lost to the mists of time, but one of the purposes of P's emphasis on Dutch
history in M&D is the importance of Dutch role in Pennsylvania history.
Another interesting factoid along this LINE is that a century or so earlier
Descartes moved to Holland to become a military officer and spent most of
the rest of his life there.<

(I can’t find your reference and I don't believe you)

2015-02-20 17:47 GMT+01:00 Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>:

> M&D - continuing observations (just my take): :
>
> Chapter 11 - Overview from Wikipedia
>
> "While the Reverend sails on to India, the Mercury makes port at the
> island of St. Helena, depicted as a surreal and desolate location. During
> an evening stroll that takes them within viewing distance of the island's
> gallows, Mason and Dixon encounter the Lady Florinda, with whom Mason had a
> brief tryst after the death of his wife. A flashback depicts their meeting
> a year before at the hanging of Lord Ferrers in London before the episode
> closes with the introduction of Florinda's fiance.”
>
> ******************************
> Page 105
> **  The St. Helena of old had been as a paradise," avers Euphrenia. "The
> Orange and Lemon Groves, the Coffee-Fields -“   **   She was never there
> but she mourns them and defends mourning them.
>
> ???  (At this time St. Helena was a part of the English East India Company
> and was known for its  “Infamous Port of Call” catering to the pleasures,
> “Misbehavior,”  of the transient sailors.)
>
> The issue of unreliable narrators all over - but there are many kinds -
> outright liars, naive, dim-witted, solipsistic,
>
> >> Euphrenia - I nothing found for a meaning,
> http://eleven.namespage.com/posts/euphrenia-woody  (stupid)
>
> And from Joseph earlier (thank you!) :
> Euphrenia was an ancient goddess in the region of Holland ( see
> wikipedia), she was often accompanied by a dog. Whether it was a talking
> dog appears lost to the mists of time, but one of the purposes of P's
> emphasis on Dutch history in M&D is the importance of Dutch role in
> Pennsylvania history.  Another interesting factoid along this LINE is that
> a century or so earlier Descartes moved to Holland to become a military
> officer and spent most of the rest of his life there.
> (I can’t find your reference but I believe you)
>
> Me again:
> And  we can take the name apart:
> “Eu-“    a combining form meaning “good,” “well,” occurring chiefly in
> words of Greek origin ( eupepsia); or “true,” and “genuine.”   Euphoria
> definition, a state of intense happiness and self-confidence:
>
> “Phren" (Ancient Greek: φρήν phrēn "mind", genitive: φρενός) is an Ancient
> Greek word for brain or mind. It is sometimes written later as "fren," and
> is found in the English languagewords schizophrenia, phrenitis, phrenic
> nerve, frenzy, frenetic.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phren
>
> and:
> Euphrenia, or, The test of love : a poem /
> By: Sharp, William, 1855-1905.
> Published: (1884)
> This is a novel in verse form with Cantos for chapters - 171 pages
> according to GoogleBooks.  There’s a lot about the sun and moon and so on.
>
> Well,  um … there were coffee-fields there in the 18th century, they
> disappeared for awhile, returned, disappeared and are now returning again:
>
> http://www.st-helena-coffee.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=173&lang=en
>
> The only St. Helena oranges I know of are up in the St. Helena of Napa
> Valley in California.  (heh)
>
> ** What is Euphrenia’s source for that “paradise” bit?  She is certainly
> not a reliable source for any info - no more than Margaret Mitchell is a
> reliable source for the ante-bellum South.  But where do people get their
> history and where do historians get theirs?
>
> Besides - as the narrative goes on to describe,  St. Helena is a dreadful
> place - (but so,  likely as not,  was the ante-bellum South and Margaret
> Mitchell was not alive then. )  Anyway …
> ************
>
> **  Cherrycoke continues telling the family that he didn’t travel with
> M&D*  to St. Helena but rather went to India and past. So he missed both
> the island and Rev’d Maskelyine (another Rev’d fwiw - ).
> * And Laura was right here about the Rev C’s  destination being India - I
> forgot that- hadn’t got to it this time yet.)
>
> Anyway-  the question is-  how does Cherrycoke know what went on at St.
> Helena?  He says something about Maskelyne being there,  but doesn’t really
> answer the question.  (Did Cherrycoke ever even meet Maskelyne?)
>
> ** Reverend Dr. Maskelyne (Mask Line? - or Mescaline? -  and that was his
> real name!):
>
> http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Reverend_Nevil_Maskelyne
> Maskelyne was at St. Helena during the Transit of Venus as well as the
> parallax of Sirius, a star in the “whale" constellation.  (But Maskelyne is
> no Ahab.)    After his stint in St. Helena he was named the Astronomer
> Royal, a position he held from 1765 until his death in 1811.
>
> **  Rev C also notes that Maskelyne has published an “Almanack,” thereby
>
> “...doing his bit for global Trade.”
>
> Cherrycoke does not object to this except that Maskelyne’s work does not
> include the “Celestial.”  (What in the world does that mean?  -  no trading
> with the “Other Worldly”?  (and that will come up again)   - or he has
> provided no Celestial maps? -  (TRP is saving it up for AtD? - not really.)
>
> ** Cherrycoke dramatically smirks a holy little smirk and Uncle Lomax says:
> “Your halo blinds me,  Sir.  Aye, most Italian.”    (Anther Italian opera
> reference - ? or maybe Lomax is calling Cherrycoke a Papist? - maybe a
> combination.)
>
> I think Pynchon may be questioning secondary sources here because first
> there’s Euphrenia and now there’s Cherrycoke telling the story of M&D in
> St. Helena - and Rev. C wasn’t even there.  He implies he got his info from
> Maskelyne (who may be mad)  but only delivers very basic info about the man
> and the times along with some speculation.
>
> Actually,  this setup  might be staging Cherrycoke as “omniscient”
> narrator what with the beneficent smile and halo.  ??   (Another case of
> deliberate “who is the narrator” and “where/when does he live” ambiguity.)
>
> *****************************************
> p. 106:
> Now we have a true (to my mind) Pynchonian sentence:
>
> “The idea of making Port at St. Helena, is to keep to windward, get
> South-east of the Island, and let the Trade Winds carry you to the coast,-
> which you then follow general northward, till you come ‘round to the lee
> side, and on into the harbor of James’s  Town - where despite appearances
> of Shelter, the oceanic Waves continue to beat without ceasing, the Clamor
> wind-borne, up across the Lines and the Parade, all being reduced to
> Geometry and optical illusion, even what is waiting there all around, *
> what is never to be nam’d directly.” *   (my asterisks)
>
> **  So what is it that is  "never to be named directly”  - the darkness?
> Darkness as "the Void?”  (See ATD also.)
>
> The sentence is used as the “fade-out” of family gathering to refocus in
> the gloom of St. Helena.
>
> This entire inner section of Chapter 11 is “dark" in many ways.   And the
> ominous “Darkness” affects Mason:
>
> “… what Mason sees from his first Nightfall there is Darkness *rising up*
> (italicized in the text) out of the sea, where all the carelessly bright
> day it has lain as in a state of slum ber … whilst at dawn.
>
>  “In the Astrology of this island, the Sun must be reckoned of less
> importance than Darkness incorporated as some integral, anti-luminary
> object, with its own motions, positions, and aspects,- Black Sheep of the
> family of Planets, neither to be sacrificed to Hades nor spoken of by Name…”
>
> ** And the story darkens,  deepens,  descends -  the language becomes
> dense and intense,  heavy with metaphor and longish sentences - almost
> Biblical one might say except that’s hard to define.  It feels like the
> opposite of the prior Cape section where life was sunny.  Here life is dark
> in many senses of the term.
>
> The narrator (whichever) zooms down on our heroes at St. Helena with:
> “Once ashore the Astronomers hear the Ocean everywhere, no Wall thick, nor
> Mind compos’d, nor Valley remote enough to lose it.”
>
> St. Helena - 1790 - drawing:
> -
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Helena#mediaviewer/File:Thornton,_St_Helena.jpg
> A census in 1723 recorded 1,110 people, including 610 slaves.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Helena
>
> James’s Town:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Saint_Helena
> drawing from 1794:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Saint_Helena#mediaviewer/File:Town_of_St_James,_Island_of_St_Helena_(1794).jpg
>
> Contemporary photo:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Saint_Helena#mediaviewer/File:Jamestown_Saint_Helena_port.jpg
>
>
> **A paralax is a kind of Trinity - a shape with three points -   (A
> Jesuit, a Corsican and a Chinaman)  - all moving -
> Mason, Dixon and Cherrycoke,  England, St. Helena and Benkoolan -
>
> And re Benkulen; (aka Fort Marlborough to the East India Co, during M&D's
> time.   On the West coast of Sumatra, approx half way between the equator
> and Krakatoa. According to J Keay in The Hon. Company "It was not a popular
> destination. Only the disgraced and the truly desperate found their way
> [there]." 41; 44; 47; 270-71
> http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B
>
> Becky
> where it is very foggy
>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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