M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Mark Kohut]

I will bow to that, happily yet, cosmic is often Pynchon so I'll
circle on back and I have refined my reach a bit after posting. Mason
is, here, the West an Anglican Englishman at the twilight of its
Empire. Not the new world to come.

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 3:51 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Too cosmic for now -- I'm just trying to understand Anglican Englishman
> Mason and death, and the timing of the angles from which we're shown that.
> Let's tackle Puritans, Americans, Western Civilization and death later.
>
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  If, as Rich pointed out, Mason & Dixon are--and I think he asked if
>> it was (too) obviously opposing strains in the Americas that are
>> becoming the United States, let me throw this around the
>> scholarly-inclined.
>> We know that Brown's LIFE AGAINST DEATH shaped a lot of the deep
>> vision of Gravity's Rainbow...you can look it up..
>>
>> So, I ask, is Pynchon's very full accenting of Mason's proclivity to
>> deathless therefore death-obsessed thoughts a focussing
>> on the death wish in Western, soon the real America, society? That
>> deep foundational Puritan strain excoriated  from Melville, Hawthorne
>> thru Pynchon and Roth (and all the earlier and later writers I missed)
>> with TRP carrying it to Freud's death wish thru
>> Brown? The Discontents with Civilization.
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:19 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Well... death and mourning and suicidal thoughts and metempsychosis
>> > having
>> > had their say, let's add what we'll learn on pp. 109-110, when a
>> > brightly
>> > outfitted Florinda arrives at St. Helena and greets Mason as "Tyburn
>> > Charlie":
>> > "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... 'Twas then
>> > that
>> > Mason began his Practice, each Friday, of going out to the hangings at
>> > Tyburn, expressly to chat up women, upon a number of assumptions, many
>> > of
>> > which would not widely be regarded as sane."
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:09 PM, <msacha1121 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> So many suggestions of death in this section, popping up amidst
>> >> otherwise
>> >> lighthearted scenes of pre-departure. Tyburn can probably be attributed
>> >> to
>> >> mood, but there's a lot to do with the sense of passage and the
>> >> significance
>> >> of getting back from the traverse - Mason, in the company of Hepsie, is
>> >> eager to reach his late wife but not to stay there. Pirate ships are
>> >> "Bullies (that) shift about in the dark", but it isn't the French at
>> >> the
>> >> helm of boats that "wait with muffl'd Oars to ferry them against their
>> >> will
>> >> over to a Life they may not return from." The principle word here, I
>> >> think,
>> >> being "may".
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > On Jan 12, 2015, at 3:14 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Life Against Death....and Dixon fearing he is unfit for being with
>> >> > others in public.
>> >> >
>> >> > Then, related, Mason's Puritanism sees joke-telling Dixon as perhaps
>> >> > dicey to be in public with.
>> >> >
>> >> > a lot in its way....major contrasting temperaments and each seeing a
>> >> > different public self.
>> >> > has to lead someplace in the book.........
>> >> >
>> >> >> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 3:05 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> >> >> wrote:
>> >> >> I think the implication is that Mason's grieving has brought on a
>> >> >> depression, generating a morbid fascination with death. I don't know
>> >> >> how
>> >> >> much deeper one could examine this.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> David Morris
>> >> >>
>> >> >>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 1:39 PM, Monte Davis
>> >> >>> <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> >> >>> wrote:
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> 15.10: "Mason explains, though without his precise reason for it,
>> >> >>> that,
>> >> >>> for the past Year or more, it has been his practice to attend the
>> >> >>> Friday
>> >> >>> Hangings at that melancholy place ..." (Tyburn)
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> Anybody care to venture a "precise reason"? This first meeting is
>> >> >>> in
>> >> >>> 1760
>> >> >>> or 1761, so his habit might date to his wife Rebekah's death in
>> >> >>> 1759
>> >> >>> (although later we'll get reasons to think he had tended to the
>> >> >>> Melancholick well before that). And yes, the Tyburn hangings were
>> >> >>> an
>> >> >>> acknowledged Sight of London.
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> Is that enough to explain it? Mason is rather gentle, neither
>> >> >>> sadistic
>> >> >>> nor
>> >> >>> vindictive; I for one don't see an obvious or direct connection
>> >> >>> between
>> >> >>> mouning and a desire to watch excutions.
>> >> > -
>> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> >
>> >
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l