calculated madness on the way to the transit of Venus-

[alice malice]

There is so much madness, accusation of madness, feigning of madness,
allusion to the causes of madness, cures for madness,  and parody of
the traditional causes and cures  of madness, of the ship of fools...
and so on that a reader begins to feel as though she's sailing away on
Hamlet's Flying Cuckoo's Nest.

Is this all method acting? Pynchon messing with his critics who say he
can't make lifelike characters? I'll show you. I can do madness.

 Surely much madness here is divinest sense if we can make something of it.

 There must be, in all this madness, a method in it.

Grant is mad; he is suffering from too much time on land and now that
he's finally got his sea legs and a horse, the last nag in the barn,
he's gonna ride.

The kid who gives him the orders is a fool. Grant is mad with taking
orders from young fools.

Old salts, old soldiers, old carpenters, old people who have seen a
lot and have to take orders from young fools who have more power often
employ the madness method. After so many years of whatever it is
they've been doing they are, some say, burnt out, or mad, or maybe
only half faking the madness to keep the young power trippers at arms
length. Doesn't always work when masts and mastheads and ladders and
scaffolds are part of the job. Things slip, get dropped.

There is a risk to playing mad. Hamlet kills the wrong man. Ends up
dead. His girl goes mad for read and ends up dead.

A parody of the revenge tragedy is Hamlet. Maybe M&D is parody of all
the madness ever staged.

I see that Mason has a Ramadan in remembrance of his wife's departure.

Queequeg is married to Ishmael.

But Ishmael is not dead.

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/662/chapter-17-the-ramadan/





 will discover soon enough that men like Grant are mad enough and it's
best to let them alone.

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
> Perhaps the “Advantage” to being thought perhaps insane is that it keeps your company off balance  - you’re possibly dangerous - who knows what you’ll do given the right prompt?  Folks are careful around other folks who are so unpredictable as the insane.
>
> As for not opening the message until they get to Tenerife,  it has the the eastern destination noted.  It’s possible that if some of the crew knew this destination early they might not sail - or the captain might sail away elsewhere.  (Or it might be a power-trip on the part of the powers-that be.)
>
> Bekah
>
>> On Jan 27, 2015, at 9:52 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>> "At this turn in his Life, Capt. Grant has discover'd in his own feckless Youth, a Source of pre-civiliz'd Sentiment useful to his Praxis of now and then pretending to be insane, thus deriving an Advantage over any unsure as to which side of Reason he may actually stand upon."
>>
>> What is this "Advantage"? For the "pre-civiliz'd" there is an association with madness and divinity/the spirit world/second sight/hidden powers.  This shamanic  advantage may trace to the claimed divinity of rulers, to simple fear reinforced by social and technical powers, and may have a modern global role as M.A.D.  But my first thought was that it lines up with Pynchon's role as captain of his literary enterprise: part shamanic lightning rod, part  traveler through a world he did not create, part godlike creator of something always simultaneously both imaginary and real.
>>
>>   The captain is self aware and affably sensitive to the fact that  respect for his authority is a kind of negotiated magic that has to make sense to the crew and the superstitions and practicalities of seafaring.
>>
>> This magical aspect of commanding a ship is set against the imperial mechanics of orders to be opened at Tenerife. Why? Is he supposed to take them to a naval post to witness the proper timing of the opening. What would keep him from opening them as soon as the messenger leaves. Are they fucking with his head the way he is with his crew to keep the lines of power clear?
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l