M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I wouldn't describe this as "unreliable," but I don't think it's something Cherrycoke is saying aloud. The year after Rebekah's death is something Cherrycoke has no personal knowledge of. He may or may not have personal knowledge of the "night-world of Rakes and Whores," but I still read this as internal musing, not storytelling to his  audience.

Laura

-----Original Message-----

From: Monte Davis 

Sent: Feb 23, 2015 1:51 PM

To: kelber 

Cc: jochen stremmel , Becky Lindroos , pynchon -l 

Subject: Re: M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110



Are you reading this passage on p. 110 as unreliable because the paragraph ends with Wicks drifting off and being recalled by "Uncle, Uncle"? 
"The year after Rebekah’s death was
treacherous ground for Mason, who was as apt to cross impulsively by Ferry
into the Bosom of Wapping, and another night of joyless low
debauchery, as to attend Routs in Chelsea, where nothing was available betwixt
Eye-Flirtation, and the Pox. In lower-situated imitations of the
Hellfire Club, he hurtl’d carelessly
along some of Lust’s less-frequented footpaths, ever further,
he did not escape noting, from Pleasure.."
If so, what makes anything after mid-106 more reliable? If it's reliable, whether from Wicks or Pynchon, what do you make of something so at variance with almost everything else we learn of Mason-as-widower?
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l