M&D - Chapter 16 - Peach and Silk

[Johnny Marr]

We encounter Susannah Peach, the original apple of Mason's eye, and the
daughter of British imperial conquest, clother solely in the silk that her
merchant father imported from India. TRP's criticism of the exploitative
nature of the British Empire is clear without becoming overstated - a world
of plundered treasure, of foreign lands and customs assumed without
question. TRP wears his learning lightly - three types of silk (Tussah,
Pngee and Susannah's favourite Shantung) are mentioned with casual
authority.

TRP writes one of the most beautiful extended sentences you could hope to
read. Shades of political critique and erudition, but both are subjugated
to sheer aesthetic delight.

"Savage flowers of the Indies, demurer Blooms of the British garden,
striped and tartans, foreign colours undream'd of in Newton's prismatics,
damasks with epic-length Oriental tales woven into them, requiring hours of
attentive gazing whilst the light at the window went changing so as to
reveal newer and deeper labyrinths of event, Velvets whose grasp of
incident light was so predatory and absolute that one moved closer to
compensate for what was not being reflected, till it felt like being drawn,
oneself, inside the unthinkable countours of an invisible surface"


Susannah's recommendation that Charles learns 'Silk' offers a career with
great prospects, although he may have to move to Aleppo in Syria rather
than India. A clever reminder from TRP that India was very much the jewel
in the crown of the British empire in the mid-18th century, with America a
vast, still mostly unexplored backwater. The mention of Syria can't help
but resonate for readers in 2015 - the colonising powers just can't leave
alone ...
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150324/cd3c959f/attachment.html>