M&D chaper 12 pp 120-121

Fri Feb 27 04:54:35 CST 2015

May be of interest:

Henry Havelock Ellis's Study of English Genius

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Henry_Havelock_Ellis

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
> Page 120
> Mason says Dixon should NOT ask Maskelyne about the Sisson instrument, but Dixon wants to - feels it’s his job,  but chickens out.   His leaving creates tension between the two - Mason isn’t too hot on spending 3 months on St. Helena with Maskelyne.
>
> **  Historical footnote:   Mason and Dixon remained in Cape Town until 3 October then joined Nevil Maskelyne on Saint Helena. Dixon returned briefly to South Africa to make gravity observations while Mason assisted Maskelyne with astronomical and tidal measurements…”
>
> “...gravity observations”?  and so this is what Dixon did! - we get Mason’s interactions with Maskelyne in chapter 13.  From the book it would seem it was about the clocks but some sources say both reasons were important.
>
>
> **  Cock-Ale:
> … popular in 17th and 18th-century England,  an ale whose recipe consisted of normal ale brewed inside a container, to which was later added a bag stuffed with a parboiled, skinned and gutted cock, and various fruits and spices.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_ale
>
> Another recipe:
> https://internationalroutier.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/take-a-cock-and-boil-him-well/
>
> Funny:
> http://recipes.hypotheses.org/3018
>
> So which recipe is Blackner (another good name)  using? The old one?
>
> Irrelevant:  Several authors have theorised that Cock ale may have mutated into cocktail, an American word first used in 1806 whose origin is now lost.[11][12][13]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_ale
>
> * And an anachronism:  Beer was not sold in cans until 1935 -
> http://time.com/3677072/canned-beer-80th-anniversary/
> Other foods were sold in cans starting in the mid 19th century:
> "Glass jars were largely replaced in commercial canneries with cylindrical tin or wrought-iron canisters (later shortened to "cans") following the work of Peter Durand (1810)."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning
>
> ***  Maskelyne detects,  “… some lack of complete Trust” between M&D and Mason is a bit grumpy.  “Lapse of Attention” - (lots of lapses of attention in this chapter).   Does Maskelyne have to watch his tongue while Dixon is away? Na - just don’t say “Good morning.”  -  lol -
>
> ***************
>
> Page 121
> Colonialism and Science:  -  Discussion of nationalism (or cultural /racial superiority?)  as related to science - French and English are different in their treatment of instruments and measurement - English overly precise (?) and French more casual?
>
> Dixon:  “ ’Tis the British Way, to take the extra step that may one day give us an Edge when we need one, probably against the French.  Small Investment,  large Reward.  I  regard myself as a practitioner of British Science now.”  -
>
> He doesn’t mind going to South Africa again because he approves of the English way of  double checking.
>
> Is that “British Way” a rather colonialist attitude?  -  kinda-sorta-maybe? -  or is it true that the English were more thorough? Newton?  -
>
>
> ** NEWTON is my Deity!” (said Dixon back on page 116) -
>
> And from:
> https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/45311/000000318.sbu.pdf?sequence=3
>
> "In Mason & Dixon the ideas of Science and Reason are so closely intertwined that each loses what might make it distinct from the other.  This can be seen in the language Maskelyne uses when speaking of their work to Mason: “‘Reason, or any Vocation to it,— the Pursuit of the Sciences’” (135). Similarly, Dixon energetically embraces his work, but it is not altogether divorced from his interest in religion. In fact, he seems to confound the two when, in a bar on St. Helena, he proclaims to Mason and Maskelyne that “‘Newton is my Deity’”
>
>  ** Newton, an English “natural philosopher,” (scientist, alchemist, etc.)  had died only 35 years prior (1727) to the setting of M&D. He was the hero of the scientific community in those days (weeks, months, years, decades, centuries)  and is mentioned in passing a bunch of times in these chapters, astronomy, gravity,  His work affected almost all of science in those days but it still included alchemy.
>
> ** Seems to me that Pynchon has perfectly captured the times - a pursuit of measurable, reproduceable, testable information about the world on the one hand but still tied to ideas of mysticism and superstition, alchemy and what we call magic on the other.
>
> From Michiko Kakutani’s 1997 review in the NY Times:
> http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/27/daily/pynchon-book-review.html
>
> “In "Mason & Dixon," his long-awaited new novel -- and the most emotional and affecting work in his oeuvre to date -- Pynchon offers a variation on this favorite theme. the overarching tension is between Enlightenment rationalism and absurdist despair; between the orderly processes of science and the inexplicable marvels of nature, between our modern faith in progress and the violent, primeval realities of history.
>
> **********
>
> **** Clocks (related to time -  heh):   According to the narrative and outside sources the (Sheldon?) clock used to track the Transit of Venus on St. Helena is going to exchanged with the (Ellicott?) clock used at the Cape.  They brought the one from the Cape back with them and Dixon has to accompany Maskelyne’s clock to the Cape -
>
>  "to check the force of gravity.”
> https://uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com/2
>
> Bracket (small pendulum) clocks:
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_clock
>
> **  Narrator giving background:
> "However well sprung the Bracket arrangements, these Walls were fix’d ultimately to the Sea , whose Rhythm must have affected the Pendula of both clocks in ways we do not fully appreciate,— the Pendulum, as is well known, being a Clock’s most sensitive Organ of communication,— here allowing the two to chat, in the Interval between the one’s being taken from its Shipping-Case and the other’s being nail’d up in its own, to go with Dixon to the Cape. Both are veterans of the Transit of Venus,…”
>
> Shelton Clock:   John Shelton was a famous London clockmaker. He made five astronomical regulators for the Royal Society for timing the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769. Regulators were accurate clocks used specifically for timing transit observations to the exact second - See more at: http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/special_collections/artefacts/shelton_regulator#sthash.sv1V1Qgv.dpuf
> a different Shelton clock:
> http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2012/catherinerow/
>
> Elliott Clock - - of the times but not necessarily used for scientific stuff - can’t find it - but these were very, very good clocks - official from English King.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ellicott_(clockmaker)
>
> Th clocks are placed side by side on a shelf where  “…these Walls were fix’d ultimately to the Sea whose Rhythm must have affected the Pendula of both clocks  -
>
>  *in ways we do not fully appreciate, - “*
>
> ** another call to the mysterious -
>
> and maternal?
> “… the Timing of Jupiter’s Moons, which back and forth like restless Ducklings keep vanishing behind their Maternal Planet, only quickly to reappear.”  (I love that metaphor - it’s original and appropriate and makes me smile.)
>
> The Ellicott Clock advises the Sheldon Clock that he’ll be on duty 24 hours and
>
> “You’ll be on Duty twenty-four hours, is what it comes to,” the Elliocott Clock advisees.  “Along with the usual fixation upon one’s rate of Going …”  ???
>
>  “… one’s rate of Going …”  what???? -  Mad?
>
> Becky
>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l