M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Mark Thibodeau]

Wow. That's pretty dark, Philip.

Nice one!

MT

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 12:13 AM, Philip Smith <e4e689 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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