M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[alice malice]

The characterization of Mason as English, as Anglican, as Scientific
and so on, all stuff we can read, as Pynchon did, in the history and
biography, the letters and so on, need not be reconciled with the
Mason we meet in M&D. In fact, this seems the point. Pynchon's Mason
is a melancholic soul, troubled by wind and what is blowing in it,
much of it what his training, his knowledge of history, what he was
told and taught, what he came to expect prepared never to encounter.

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