CH 10 omniscience in an expanding universe of direct experience.

Sun Feb 22 21:42:42 CST 2015

Agree with Jochen.
 Cherrycoke is both a witty observer and an important character in the book with an audience of mostly youthful hearers, who also serve as a means to shift time and generation and consider events  of the tale from several perspectives.  So the light moves, fragments and reassembles. But the multivalent possibilities of the cinema style shift in narrative tone between CC's world his clear direct narration  and  the unfolding multiprismatic  and more omniscient ( or more highly imaginative) movie style, are explored as Jochen notes, within Pynchon' penchant for giving full play to his literary influences and references, his jokes and shifting tone. The structure is cinematic but the effect is highly litereary.

I guess what I like is that it is like the expanding universe.... there is no center  as we normally conceive it here, because everywhere is the center. And what would omniscience be if not that very thing.

 Pynchon wrestles with both omniscience and regular old science  like Jacob with the angel and Like Jacob holds his own. Omniscience haunts every text as God haunts the pages of this novel, both impossible and the only possible explanation for knowing any thing, if knowing anything is indeed possible. While the movements of the cosmos haunt the Dutch they are kinder to their slaves, but raptures come and go and it's back to the business of selling slave babies.

And the word was made flesh, light became matter and was a goddess of love one year, The biblical savior proclaimed by John Wesley decades earlier,  or equally solemn to some, the year Harry Clasper out kneel'd the lad from Hetton-le-Hole ... or perhaps where we started in the not so enlightened post revolution republic neatly divided by pure euclidean claim? 

  Mason begins again to look for "direct experience" and falls asleep waiting in silence for holiness to flood his hungry soul. Dixon takes the opportunity to nip down to the bar for a drink. Is that chalice not also direct experience?

On Feb 16, 2015, at 1:59 PM, jochen stremmel 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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