M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Mark Kohut]

O yeah...The Tempest has the line about the past being prologue which seems pretty apt for Pynchon's set up in M & D. 

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> On Jan 16, 2015, at 7:10 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> We learned earlier of Mason's 'heedlessness' and in Monte's citation
> we learn of his similar heedlessness toward "Lust's less-frequented footpaths"..
> 
> Gripped by grief, he acts the opposite of mindful, that quality we have examined
> elsewhere in P's vision.
> 
> So, is Mason unable to see clearly, objectively, mindfully attentive
> ...unless he
> can overcome his Grief? More embedding of unreliable narrator trope?
> 
>> 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