M&D Chapter 12 - pages 118-119

Sat Feb 28 12:04:47 CST 2015

As I 'told' Wood in my letter to him about his review of Against the
Day, if/when he reads it again, he will change
his mind. or maybe I wrote 'should' change his mind? And maybe I said
to him---and I know I did here on the list--that
like Leavis on Dickens he would reread and reconsider.

Leavis added Dickens to the Great Tradition in a whole book published
round about 1970, decades after The Great Tradition.
And, his major reason for reevaluating, as I remember---NO, I did not
read the whole book then or since---was that he found
more depth in the social criticism and even, one wants to write,
'therefore' in more of the characters.

Wood does not do that in his lumpin' -them-together essay/reading
based on their linguistic style. I think Wood has read too much
fiction and not enough of the right non-fiction as critic. But easy to
say.

On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 4:41 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> JS> Perhaps a little anachronism here, again?
>
> That's how I read it, too, although the prime-number handwaving helps it to
> slip by.
>
> Not that Maskelyne gives the impression of EVER having been very
> trustworthy.            .
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 3:42 PM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I mean, wasn't it some fellow-countryman of Yours who coined the phrase
>> "trust nobody over 30"? I inhaled it all the way when I was in San Francisco
>> in the summer of '72 - I was only 24 and thought I would never be that old
>> (take in sail).
>>
>> Perhaps a little anachronism here, again?
>>
>> 2015-02-25 21:16 GMT+01:00 Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>:
>>>
>>> Omg!  How funny and interesting!
>>>
>>> Way back in the olden days,  when I was about to turn 30,  I decided to
>>> give myself a "last-day-of-29" party.  I loved the idea and probably would
>>> have done it had I considered that this was the last day of "prime" of life
>>> (at least until I was 31).  Alas,  my birthday is very shortly after New
>>> Year's and I was all partied out.
>>>
>>> Becky
>>>
>>> > On Feb 25, 2015, at 10:39 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>>> >
>>> > I absolutely love this passage, and it reminds me of another of my
>>> > favorites, similarly anthropomorphizing math/science: Janff in GR,
>>> > complaining that covalent bonds are too wimpy - they share elections, where
>>> > ionic bonds seize them.
>>> >
>>> > Laura
>>> >
>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>> >
>>> > From: jochen stremmel
>>> >
>>> > Sent: Feb 25, 2015 1:17 PM
>>> >
>>> > To: Becky Lindroos
>>> >
>>> > Cc: pynchon -l
>>> >
>>> > Subject: Re: M&D Chapter 12 - pages 118-119
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> Mason:  (but 30 is)  "... a Number divisible,- penetrable! - by 6
>>> >> numbers!"    (eeks?  why?  - numerology of some kind I guess.)<
>>> >
>>> > You mean still Maskelyne, with the Apostrophes,and what he means with
>>> > Prime is a pun, or homonym, because 29 is a prime number (only divisible by
>>> > 1 and itself) and at the same time styled by him as "Prime of Life", while
>>> > "the dread Thirty" is a Number divisible by six others - three of them
>>> > primes themselves: 2, 3, 5 - and the others: 6, 10, 15. Quite a complaint by
>>> > someone who loves to calculate. (But perhaps you knew all this already ...
>>> > sorry, then.)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > 2015-02-25 18:27 GMT+01:00 Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>:
>>> > Another day,  another couple pages:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Maskalyne likens St. Helena to a gothic novel and says
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > "Six months I've been here - too many idle Minutes soon pile up, topple
>>> > and overwhelm the Healthiest Mind."
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > (A little foreshadowing there? -  Suspicions that Mason might go
>>> > completely mad?  Pynchon doesn't really go in for a lot of foreshadowing to
>>> > keep up suspense or whatever - just as well,  it would take the whole thing
>>> > overboard, overdone, too much.)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > ** "Sirius Business," cackles the Proprietor. -  another groaner gag.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > This novel has some very serious themes, but told with a LOT of humor -
>>> > not just humor to lighten the atmosphere -there's actually a comic tone.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > "But I also noticed that the book's  (M&D's) humor was more thoroughly
>>> > interwoven with melancholy and a sense of mortality than ever before in
>>> > Pynchon's work."
>>> >
>>> > http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/pynchon/mason.html
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > "Mason & Dixon represents an impulse to write history through the
>>> > imaginary field, to crosshatch its narrative with a realization of culture's
>>> > desire to find its identity in the realm of the imagination. It thus argues,
>>> > implicitly, for the importance of artistic imagination alongside scientific
>>> > and historical work. Pynchon rejects the harsh realism and more cynical
>>> > parodies employed by many contemporary authors, using HUMOR (my caps)  and
>>> > even magic as modes of transformation.[17] Talking dogs, sexually aroused
>>> > mechanical ducks, and nighttime apparitions and ghosts haunt Mason and Dixon
>>> > in America; perhaps the country that combines technical invention with
>>> > capitalistic enterprise might be equallymythologic in Pynchon's ambivalent
>>> > history."
>>> >
>>> > http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Thoughts on the humor and how it adds to the mix of history, themes,
>>> > story, whatever -  do you laugh? Why?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > **********
>>> >
>>> > And then, ta-da - it's Maskelyne's birthday - (which would tell us it's
>>> > October 6, 1761 and that he's 29 years old - born Oct. 1732) and he makes a
>>> > big deal of impending doom (age 30 is coming).
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > The phrase "Stygian mists"  is from "To Chloris"  in "Madrigals and
>>> > Epigrams" by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) Scottish poet.   a
>>> > little chunk of the poem -  http://www.bartleby.com/337/285.html
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Mason:  (but 30 is)  "... a Number divisible,- penetrable! - by 6
>>> > numbers!"    (eeks?  why?  - numerology of some kind I guess.)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > ***  Narrator:    "...dismal apostrophes..."    -
>>> >
>>> > And in this case the word apostrophe means exclamations,  not the
>>> > punctuation symbol.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > **** Now Dixon is leaving for South Africa to take care of Maskelyne's
>>> > "Sisson instrument"  which is probably a quadrant of some sort,  a device
>>> > for measuring angles.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sisson
>>> >
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodolite
>>> >
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrant_(instrument)
>>> >
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_instrument
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >        If the measurement device is off by a hair - then that slight
>>> > error is multiplied exponentially and Maskelyne has invested more than time
>>> > and his career in the instrument ($$?) .  Dixon is the field rep for Johnny
>>> > Bird's instruments?  - lol - but ...
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bird_(astronomer)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Why are the various measurements of time and space inaccurate?   Errors
>>> > in measurement - 1.  human error - the time of the Transit (because M&D
>>> > started/ stopped at different places) and, 2.  device error (plumb line
>>> > screwed up on quadrant).
>>> >
>>> > **********
>>> >
>>> > Is there really so little on these two pages?    Or is this "so
>>> > little?"
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > So here's an added little morsel for the Learn'd Dogs amongst us -
>>> > James Wood, in a now "classic" essay soundly criticized Zadie Smith's White
>>> > Teeth for it's "hysterical realism" and lambasted a few others in the
>>> > process (M&D, etc).
>>> >
>>> > http://www.newrepublic.com/article/61361/human-all-too-inhuman
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > And this is a rather interesting little Wiki article on the subject:
>>> >
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_realism
>>> >
>>> > (interesting little piece)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Becky
>>> >
>>> > the humor bit reminded me of hysterical and that took me on the little
>>> > semi-side trip to Wood and Wiki -
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > -
>>> >
>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> > -
>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l