M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110
Becky Lindroos
bekker2 at icloud.com
Tue Feb 24 10:54:30 CST 2015
Mark asks,
> Women in this book are all "like' Venuses..are just about all of them
> inciting sexual responses all the time, yes? More male fantasies of
> history, or any time, anywhere, I think the tale-telling set up clues
> us to. "French Women!"...Then there is Tenebrae.
> A pynchonian level that 'sez', women do want love...?
One of my minor interests in rereading M&D is to come to some kind of idea (not conclusion) of how Pynchon is treating women here - NOT in all his books as I sense a big change between Slow Learner and Bleeding Edge.
Yes, (tentatively) in M&D so far the women seem pretty much to be “Venuses,” diversions, sex interests. But I think this might change when we come to Rebekah in a couple chapters and I can’t remember much about Martha Washington and a few other women later on. I think it’s really too early to tell about generalizations. (That’s true of other generalizations, too.)
Besides, to this point, all the minor characters, obviously NOT Mason & Dixon, are rather flattish, based on stereotypes, sometimes funny creatures, caricatures, etc. And so far they are different kinds of women even if a common use of them is for sex and diversion.
We have the gorgeous and ambitious floozy (Florinda), and uppity white women (the Vroom ladies), a great slave woman (Austra) who apparently has some choice about which "white sprig” to use to gain a child. (Johanna can’t very well command one of them - heh.) Tenabræ (young flirt?) is a puzzle, but there is a sexual connotation hiding behind kissing cousins bit, to say nothing of the flaring nostrils. And Euphrenia, (old flirt- or suggestive old lady) although she is musical, claims to have a "past,” having lived in the Sultan’s harem chambers, etc.
Fwiw, I have no general problem with an author using women for sexual diversions in some books - there can be a lot of variety there and that may work within a theme. Or it may be true of the times - the So Cal beach scene in the 1970s (but that’s the theme, so … )?
Becky
> On Feb 24, 2015, at 4:03 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Whether Wicks or that 'other' narrator, my take is that Pynchon wanted
> to 'deepen' Mason's character with this Gothic death-love dimension of
> his grief. He hit it hard; pushed it, as is his wont, to an extreme;
> this scene comes close to one of the 'obscene ones in GR, I reckon.
> Grief for a loved one can make us feel 'half in love with easeful
> death'. Pynchon wanted to link such death love with the Puritan
> character, I suggest, with the Death drive as part of the attitudes to
> living that Mason & Dixon embody as they embody the range of a
> society, the society of the time and the US of A on the way---and to
> the present in that parallax scope.
>
> And he brings in another life-loving woman(?) who gets a little wet
> thinking of the possible erections of the hanged and just brings that
> up with Mason, who gets chatted up a lot better at the hanging than he
> chats up.....exercising her female flirtatiousness.....
>
> Women in this book are all "like' Venuses..are just about all of them
> inciting sexual responses all the time, yes? More male fantasies of
> history, or any time, anywhere, I think the tale-telling set up clues
> us to. "French Women!"...Then there is Tenebrae.
> A pynchonian level that 'sez', women do want love...?
>
> As with metempsychosis, another Ulysses homage?
> -- There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf.
>
> -- What's that? says Joe.
>
> -- The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf.
>
> -- That so? says Joe.
>
> -- God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in
> Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when
> they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces
> like a poker.
>
> -- Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said.
>
> -- That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural
> phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the...
>
> And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science
> and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon.
>
> The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft
> tendered medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous
> fracture of the cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the
> spinal cord would, according to the best approved traditions of
> medical science, be calculated to inevitably produce in the human
> subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres, causing
> the pores of the cobra cavernosa to rapidly dilate in such a way as to
> instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood to that part of the human
> anatomy known as the penis or male organ resulting in the phenomenon
> which has been dominated by the faculty a morbid upwards and outwards
> philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis.
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 3:41 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> DE> maybe Mason's dark obsessions, and journeys, "by Ferry", are him (as
>> Demeter...), following Rebekah into the land of the dead
>>
>> Orpheus going after Eurydice would require fewer sex changes, and P has done
>> a lot with Orpheus before and since M&D. In general, my impression is that
>> his underworld/afterlifes (possibly including the eleven days in this book?
>> the Thanatoids? The revenant Reg Despard in BE? the interior of the earth
>> here and in AtD?) lean more to a Greek Hades -- gray, joyless -- than to a
>> Christian heaven or hell.
>>
>> And we're still left with the bottom of p. 110 -- if Wicks is narrating,
>> *after* he has been awakened and/or brought back to awareness that the boys
>> are listening: "'Twas then Mason began his Practice, each Friday, of going
>> out to the hangings at Tyburn, expressly to chat up women," and his first
>> flirtatious encounter with Florinda, complete with discussion of how the
>> hanged are hung.
>>
>> The dichotomy of roistering good-time lad Dixon and mournful Rebekah-fixated
>> Mason is so consistent throughout the book that this bit really stands out
>> -- I think, is *meant* to stand out -- on subsequent readings. I can't make
>> sense of it as gratuitous embroidery on Wicks' part, or as a tag-end of some
>> alternate Masonic lifeline like the Sumatran fantasies.
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 2:38 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> While reading the passage about those "Birds of passage thro' St. Helena,"
>>> particularly the "Almost to a woman, they confess to strange and
>>> inexpressible Feelings when the
>>> ship makes landfall,-- the desolate line of peaks, the oceanic
>>> sunlight..." part, I got the image of so many Persephones in transit between
>>> the land of the living and the Underworld. Under Eleusinian Mysteries,
>>> wikipedia describes the myth of Persephone and Demeter as:
>>> "a cycle with three phases, the "descent" (loss), the "search" and the
>>> "ascent", with the main theme the "ascent" of Persephone and the reunion
>>> with her mother.
>>> A sort of Gravity's Rainbow, right? So maybe Mason's dark obsessions, and
>>> journeys, "by Ferry", are him (as Demeter...), following Rebekah into the
>>> land of the dead (what's that do to a lens, I wonder...)?
>>>
>>> And the song? I'm not sure who's narrating (I've got a sense there's a
>>> parallax-type thing going on between us and Pynchon and Cherrycoke, who
>>> reminds me a bit of the Cretan who tells us all Cretans are liars), but it's
>>> fun to imagine it with some oboe.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Feb 23, 2015, at 10:17 AM have a nice day, violet wrote this message:),
>>> <kelber at mindspring.com> <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, two narrators, omniscient and Cherrycoke, the first of whom plays
>>> with time and space; the second of whom alters facts to suit his audience,
>>> plays at biographer, and lapses into fantasies of other people's fantasies,
>>> thoughts and experiences.
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>
>>> From: jochen stremmel
>>>
>>> Sent: Feb 23, 2015 12:33 PM
>>>
>>> To: Becky Lindroos
>>>
>>> Cc: kelber , pynchon -l
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I just have to figure there are "nested narrators" in this book<
>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry if I am repeating myself but until now, p. 111, it seems to me that
>>> there are only two narrators, one Primary Narrator (to take Upton's term),
>>> that of the first sentence for example and of the bigger part of paragraph 4
>>> in chapter 3, to give another one, and Cherrycoke - and I wouldn't call him
>>> unreliable, not if the word should be more than a truism, because everybody
>>> - even TRP (who is no narrator but a storyteller, too (albeit a storyteller
>>> who gives us kind of a tapestry of realities)) - has his limits and we, the
>>> readers, have to decide if we should trust them or not.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2015-02-23 15:38 GMT+01:00 Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>:
>>> On Feb 22, 2015, at 9:43 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I read the "Uncle, Uncle!" interjection as a sign that Cherrycoke had
>>> lapsed into silent revery (or fantasy) about topics inappropriate for his
>>> audience.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> There's a passage on p. 111 (sorry to get ahead!): "Mason gapes in
>>> despair. He'll be days late thinking up any reply to speech as sophisticated
>>> as this. 'In my experience,' he might say ..." But then Mason's whole
>>> conversation with Florinda is recounted. Is the conversation still
>>> conditional: these are the things that Mason might say? Or is this
>>> Cherrycoke's version, aloud, or in revery?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Could be! I just have to figure there are "nested narrators" in this
>>> book and some of them are more apparent than others. I think I'll call
>>> Cherrycoke the "story-teller" who becomes an "omniscient narrator" while
>>> he's telling much of the inner story. But he and his audience are
>>> "transported" to his fantasy-land so it all becomes a notch more "real,"
>>> especially in the case of Mason.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Mason has a huge memory section in a few chapters - when he meets Rebekah
>>> and the cheese rolling (one of my really favorite parts of the whole book -
>>> memorable).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent: Feb 22, 2015 11:39 AM
>>>
>>>
>>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>
>>>
>>> Subject: M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Continuing Chapter 11 - in St. Helena - with Maskelyne, Mason & Dixon -
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Page 109
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Visitors to St. Helena, especially women and other than slaves - almost
>>> listed and compared to "Birds of Passage":
>>>
>>>
>>> Convicts
>>>
>>>
>>> Young Wives,
>>>
>>>
>>> Company Perpetuals
>>>
>>>
>>> (such shuttles upon the loom of Trade as Mrs. Rollright - ah - what an
>>> apparently appropriate name)
>>>
>>>
>>> Mrs. Rollright - aka Florinda - and she recognizes Mason -
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *** Okay - someone has to ask it - what's with the little ditties strung
>>> throughout - and throughout all of PYnchon's work - is this a nod to Joyce
>>> that really touched the spirit of Pynchon and he couldn't resist? Parodies?
>>> Parallax?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I can't copy anything from this source: "Music in Thomas Pynchon's Mason
>>> & Dixon" - it's 36 pages long including Notes. I didn't have to register
>>> or anything like that - just asked for .pdf and scrolled down.
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/75/170
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ***********
>>>
>>>
>>> "While other writers, like James Joyce, have invoked parallax as a
>>> perspectival method in order to challenge univocal narrative form, Pynchon
>>> works the concept more radically into his fictional treatment of
>>> historiography.[4] "
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> More at: http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ****
>>>
>>>
>>> Page 110:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ** Some omniscient narrator presents the backstory of Mason takes to
>>> attending public hangings following Rebekah's death.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Wapping was also the site of 'Execution Dock', where pirates and other
>>> water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed
>>> close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until they
>>> had been submerged three times by the tide.[2]"
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Lower-situated imitations of the "Hellfire Club"
>>>
>>>
>>> Hell-Fire Club - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club (of the
>>> times in England)
>>>
>>>
>>> also see:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11:_105-115#Page_110
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hangings on Tyburn - here we have the famous gallows - ended in 1783
>>>
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn#Tyburn_gallows
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And what a beautiful line:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ** "To the Fabulators of Grub Street, a licentious night-world of Rakes
>>> and Whores, surviving only in memories of pleasure, small darting winged
>>> beings, untrustworthy as remembrancers ... "
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (a nod to the untrustworthiness of memory)
>>>
>>>
>>> Grub Street:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grub_Street
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> continuing: "... yet its infected, fragrant, soiled encounters 'neath the
>>> Moon were as worthy as any, - an evil-in-innocence..."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (Even though untrustworthy, memories are valuable in some way -
>>> "evil-in-innocence" because memories are like wolves in sheep's clothing? -
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ******
>>>
>>>
>>> And in a total discontinuance from the narrative although apparently in
>>> response to it:
>>>
>>>
>>> ("Uncle, Uncle!"... ) etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is Tenebræ and the Cherrycoke kids breaking in, isn't it? Probably
>>> because Cherrycoke is getting too close to subjects inappropriate for the
>>> ears of children? - "Rakes and Whores" and what not.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *********
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Becky
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>>
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>>
>>
> -
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