M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Philip Smith]

As the text shows we don’t know Mason’s reason for attending the hangings,
but that doesn’t stop speculation. One possibility is his inability to
accept his wife’s death and the hangings can be viewed as a form of
desensitization. But I think Mason is finding out the death of a partner
can’t compare to that of a hundred strangers.

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
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