M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Mark Kohut]

And two ape usages. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 18, 2015, at 8:45 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

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